


Bound

by shadowscribe



Series: Drown Me In Love [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Biting, Double Penetration, Dragon Age Quest: What Pride Had Wrought, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fen'Harel greatly disapproves, Implied Relationships, Minor Character Death, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Mostly Canon Compliant, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Temple of Mythal, Threesome, Vaginal Sex, Well of Sorrows, implied Samson/Maddox, with occasional canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-09-30 01:38:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10150277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowscribe/pseuds/shadowscribe
Summary: “Alright,” she murmurs and just that word is enough to make him sag into her hand. “No goodbyes.”“No goodbyes,” Thom agrees gruffly.“No goodbyes,” Cullen whispers but when he kisses her all she can taste is sorrow.Catheryn has never expected to survive her final confrontation with Corypheus so when she follows him into the Temple of Mythal she doesn't expect to ever leave it.Except she does and it changes everything.





	1. The Breath Before the Plunge

**Author's Note:**

> Brief mention of NSFW activities towards the very end of the chapter.

The humidity is relentless. It presses down on the army like an invisible hand, exerting its influence until, despite the still moderate temperatures, everyone who is not fortunate enough to have a mage friend willing to draw a cooling glyph on their armor is sweating entire oceans. It means that even now, when the sun is setting and camp is being pitched, that everything is damp and sticky and…

“Pork,” the Iron Bull comments helpfully from behind her. “Human sweat smells like pork left in the sun too long.”

“That’s disgusting,” Catheryn replies, but she’s smiling. She can feel the massive Qunari shrug as he moves to stand beside her.

“Just sayin’ boss.”

They’re silent for a moment, standing together on the rocky incline overlooking the bulk of the camp, hundreds of small campfires winking into existence as the shadows of dusk fall over the jungle. She doesn’t know if the number of them – and the soldiers they represent – terrifies her or reassures her. A bit of both, probably. How many of them will die tomorrow or the day after? How many of them will fall beneath Corypheus’ forces, never to return home again?

Catheryn Trevelyan, so-called Herald of Andraste, and the leader of the Inquisition, presses her lips together against the sudden roll of her gut. “Did you need something?” she asks, more to get her mind focused on something else – anything else – than out of any particular need to know.

“I’m with you.”

She tips her head to the side, brow furrowing as she draws her gaze away from the campfires. The one eyed former Qunari spy is formidable in the fading light, the gray of his skin shining like steel as he stands solid and unmoving, his face void of any of his characteristic good humor.

 “I know, Bull,” she murmurs, still searching his face.

 For a moment she can feel the heat of the blast, feel the way the shock of it tore into her. It would have sent her flying to the ground, it _should_ have, bruising her with its force and marking her with the remnants of the ship that she had sent to its death. It hadn’t though. Instead, she’d found herself surrounded by gray Qunari flesh, the Iron Bull offering up the solid wall of his body as shield against the debris flung by the destruction of the dreadnaught. Her urge to save the Chargers had been instinctive, the drive to protect her friends, protect those that were precious to her, driving her to open her mouth before she’d had a chance to think it through. She’d known, though, she’d known as soon as the sentence fell from her tongue what she was asking of him.

Her words were making him choose, forcing him to pick a world from those that he straddled. Who was he? Ben Hassarath or Mercenary? Qun or Inquisition? Political good or the lives of his family?

Thoughtlessly she had set the ball in motion and watched, horror struck, as he severed himself from all that he knew, all that he thought he was. For the Chargers. For the Inquisition. For _her_.

So yeah, she knows that he is with her.

“That’s not what I meant,” he replies, no doubt following the line of her thoughts.  He shifts unconsciously, stretching the handful of burn scars that pull at his back, an eternal remnant of that day. “Tomorrow, when Cullen takes the bulk of the army to meet the Templars and you wait here, I’m with you. And when the scouts finally find Corypheus, I’m with you.”

“You don’t have to do that, Bull,” she tells him softly. “I’d know you’d feel better being out there with Dorian.” She nods at the campfires, indicating the army. As much as she loves him the necromancer’s abilities will be more useful for Cullen, facing down a large number of corrupted Templars, than they will be for her.

 Maker, if she thought it would keep those she loved safe she’d leave them all with the main fight.

Not that they would let her, but still.

“Eh, he understands,” Bull explains with a shrug. “Who do you think sent me up here?” he nudges her arm and winks at her. Catheryn can’t help but smile at innate absurdity of the gesture. The soft clink of potion bottles bumping together makes her blink and look down at his hand. He holds it up to her, palm flat and fingers slightly curved to contain the two vials that rest there. The contents swirl, an inky indigo that almost glows in its darkness.

Catheryn’s breath catches in her chest. “Is that…?”

“Yeah. I’ve been hoardin’ them since we took down that beauty in the Graves. Figured they might come in handy at the end.” Catheryn watches, stunned and unsure of what to say as Bull gently returns the vials of dragon’s blood to his potion’s pouch, and wonders if Josephine knows that he possesses it. It’s a small fortune there in the case attached to the width of his belt – enough to finish fixing the eastern wall. More, probably.

In Bull’s hands… Catheryn lets out a shaky breath. He’s a Reaver already. Dump another vial of dragon’s blood in him and he becomes a raging monster, an unstoppable, violent force. It’s jaw-droppingly impressive. The recovery once the dust settles is also a complete bitch. A fucking hangover that she wouldn’t wish on any but her worst enemy, let alone someone she actually cares about.

“Bull…”

“You’ll need the extra brute strength against Corypheus. I don’t imagine the asshole will go down easy,” the Qunari interrupts gently. “When I signed on to this madhouse I offered myself as your bodyguard. As your frontline man. Let me do my fucking job.”

Catheryn stares for a moment and then nods slowly. “I wasn’t going to refuse,” she mutters wryly. “I just… I just assumed you’d stay with Dorian. I’ve taken so much from you already. I didn’t…” she shakes her head and turns back to the fires, unsure of how to explain that she doesn’t want to take Dorian from him – or, more accurately, him from Dorian. If she can get to Corypheus… well. She doesn’t expect to walk away from that.

She doesn’t really expect anyone else to walk away from it either, but she hopes. She hopes her companions will make it.

She’s not willing to risk what Dorian and Bull have on her hope, though.

“That’s not your choice, Boss, and you haven’t taken shit from me.”

She stares at him for a long moment. “If you’re sure…” she sighs, scrubbing a hand across her eyes.

“Wouldn’t have come up here if I wasn’t,” he grunts dismissively. “Cole’s fine with accompanying Cullen,” he adds after a moment.

“Cole?”

“That’s who you were planning on taking, right? Thom, because fuck all if either he or Cullen will let you go storming after Corypheus without at least one of them. Solas, because… well, elfy shit… and he’s handy in a fight. And Cole, because he’s all demon-y and can sense useful crap. Thom and Solas would both tie me up and leave me in some hole somewhere before they’d swap places but Cole won’t mind.” Bull tips his head and stares expectantly.

“Umm. Yeah. Sounds about right,” Catheryn replies hoarsely. She forgets, occasionally, just how much his Ben Hassarath trained eye sees.  Not often, mind, but sometimes and it usually takes away her breath away when it does.

The Iron Bull claps his hand across the curve of her shoulder and grins. “Then I’ll see you in the morning. Cullen was looking for you earlier,” he tells her as he turns to go. “Do try to get some sleep at some point.” He winks again and Catheryn shakes her head.

“Go,” she mutters with a smile, shooing him away. “Go find Dorian. I’m sure he has better things for you to do.”

The smirk on his face is enough to make her lift her fingers in a rude gesture and she can hear his laughter long after he’s left the rocky hilltop, deep and booming as it drifts up from the camp. The Iron Bull: Mercenary, Spy, and Beacon of Hope.

If there is a Maker, she’s damn sure he has a fucking sense of humor.

 

* * *

 

She’s still standing there on the rocks, surveying her army in the light of a rising moon, when Cullen finds her. He doesn’t announce himself, doesn’t call her name or make any unnecessary noise to catch her attention but she knows it is him anyway. She can smell him – the musk of his sweat, the bright sweetness of the peppermint he uses for his headaches, and the almost dusty, acrid scent of elfroot – ever so faintly on the freeze. More than that she can feel him. His presence is a looming emptiness, a warm abyss that curls alongside her, and makes the magic in her veins sit up and purr.

“Bull said you were looking for me,” she murmurs as he slips up beside her, his hand wordlessly slipping along the curve of her hip. “I meant to come down, to come find you, but…”

“It’s alright,” he tells her in return, tugging gently. She gives in immediately, turning into the shelter of his arms and pressing her cheek to the warm metal of his breastplate. “It does them good to see you out amongst them and not hiding away in the command tent.”

“There are so many of them,” she whispers. “I do not want them to die for me.” She cannot keep the fear from her voice, the sorrow. She doesn’t even try. Not with him, not with this man who has held her together while the world has fallen apart.

Cullen lowers his lips and kisses the top of her head in soft benediction. “They’re not dying for you,” he corrects gently but with a soldier’s steel. “They’re fighting and dying in your name and beneath our banner but that’s not why they’re here. They’re here for themselves – for their families and loved ones, for their homes, for their faith. You’re just the name at the head, beloved.”

“I’m not sure that makes it any better.”

“I’m not sure it’s supposed to,” he admits and holds her tighter. “But they know the risks and have judged our cause worth it. Do not doubt them now.”

Catheryn stares at the fires. She is safe here, in his arms, the panic that hammers in her heart soothed by his presence.

“It’s not doubt. Maker, I would never doubt them. I just… I am so sick of death. Even for a worthy purpose. I just want…” she jerks her head against her chest and lets her voice trail off. She can’t voice the deepest desires of her heart. Here on the eve of what might be their final confrontation with Corypheus and his forces it is not even wise to think them. She can’t. She can’t think of the home that exists only in her head, populated by Cullen and Thom and a handful of children scampering gaily about. She can’t. She can’t think of a life where she has everything she wants. She can’t think of a life where her decisions only affect her family and not the entire world. She can’t. Such a life will never exist.

Cullen’s lips are soft, almost hesitant against her own, the leather clad tip of his fingers gentle as he tips her face up to meet his. The love in the gesture and the sorrow makes her heart break. What forbidden hopes has he harbored in his heart? What fantasies for a world that might never exist? He, at least, still thinks that she will come out of this alive. That’s more than she has.

“I love you,” she breathes into his mouth as he pulls back, pressing their foreheads together. “I love you so much, Cullen, I…”

“I know,” he whispers roughly as he holds her close. “I love you too.”

 

* * *

 

They hold hands as they make their way through camp, fingers laced loosely between them as they pick their way through supplies and tents and thousands of waiting bodies. He wonders if she sees the way they look at them - at the way they look at _her_ in her leathers with her staff slung across her back, her hand pulsing with green fire and turning the anchor into a steady, visible heartbeat.

Cullen returns the salutes that are offered to him, greeting his captains and soldiers with quiet inclinations of his head, but he knows that tonight there is little heart in them. Tomorrow they will rise and pick up their weapons and they will be his. Tomorrow they will form into companies and go where he tells them, a thousand fingers in the fist he means to use to crush Corypheus’ forces.  Tonight, though, he stands quietly in her shadow and holds her hand as they come to her.

Tonight, more than other nights, she is their Inquisitor. She is their Herald. Nearly half of the soldiers spread across the rocky jungle ridges and steep ravines where there at Adamant. Two hundred and eighty-seven of them are survivors from Haven. They had seen her close the Breech and watched her stand off against an archdemon and get buried beneath an avalanche only to walk out from beneath it. They had watched her fight her way through a demon filled fortress and fall through a rift into the Fade only to see her emerge from another less than a handful of hours later.

Cullen watches them and wonders if she sees it. What he said to her minutes ago is true enough but there are enough here that have seen her work too many miracles to balk now, even if there is fear in their hearts.

He is their Commander but she is their Herald and they would follow her into the Void itself.

 

* * *

 

Catheryn lets out a little gasp as they round the corner of one of the sheer granite boulders jutting out of the jungle. “Cullen! What is this?” she asks, staring. He stops a few steps ahead of her and turns back, eyes gleaming and just the faintest bit of pink staining his cheeks as he replies,

“A tent.” And if his tone isn’t a little bit teasing than she’ll prance across the battlefield in Vivienne’s ridiculous hat.

“I can see _that_ ,” she mutters, still staring.

It is, as a point of fact, a tent – though the fucking thing is really closer to _pavilion_ than it is to the already roomy tent she’s been sharing with half of the Inner Circle for the past two weeks.  It is also tucked away from the main body of the camp, enough space between them that the light of the campfires can’t pierces the shadows of the jungle that surround it. It glows softly in the darkness, nearly brushing up against the stone walls of the sharp v of the cliff face it is nestled in.

Cullen shoves her gently towards it. “Go take a look.”

Catheryn pauses in front of the tent, hand on the entrance flap. “It’s warded,” she whispers as a shiver races up her skin. The caress of the magic is familiar, comforting even, a heady blend of cold and spirit. _Solas_. Whatever magic has been laid over the tent it had been Solas’ doing. Curiosity well and truly piqued Catheryn pulls back the flap and steps inside.

“ _Oh_.”

The moment she steps over the threshold the world goes silent. Or it feels that way at least. After days spent slogging through overgrown jungle, her ears filled night and day with the sounds of all the animals and insects that make the Arbor Wilds their home the quiet is so welcome that she can feel tears prick at the corner of her eyes. It’s cool too. Cool like a soft breeze coming off the Frostbacks on a summer afternoon. Cool enough that her skin pebbles at the sudden shift in temperature even as she tips her head back with a sigh. It’s not just cool, though, but the mugginess is gone. Whatever magic Solas has worked has leached the oppressive mugginess from the air. For the first time in days Catheryn no longer feels like she’s slowly drowning every time she takes a breath.

The elf has been holding out on her. The bastard.

In front of her, just inside the entrance there is a table – a real table, four legs and everything – and a trio of chairs. Its surface is set with simple camp cutlery and plates but the smell rising from the covered dishes in the center makes her nose twitch. Whatever is under there it is most definitely not the basic rations they’ve been eating for the last few weeks. Mouth watering, she tears her gaze away from the table and forces herself to look around at the rest of the interior. There’s a pallet made up in the corner. It’s not a proper bed but its more than individual bedrolls placed next to each other on the ground and that alone makes it luxurious.

“My lady?”

The gruff rumble of Thom’s voice makes her shiver and her mouth goes dry, her heart pounding painfully behind her ribs as she catches sight of him. He’s standing in the other corner, opposite the bed, in nothing but a pair of breeches, his hair and beard still wet. 

 _Oh, fucking Maker in a bow_ , Catheryn thinks, unable to stop her tongue from darting out and moistening her lips. His shoulders are broad and thick, his biceps wide enough that she comes nowhere close to being able to span them with both of her hands. The wide, hair covered barrel of his chest gives way to washboard abs, the trail of thick, curling hair thinning enough to bare his navel before widening as it disappears beneath the waistband of cotton breeches that skim over the thick trunks of his thighs and cling to the dips and divots of his hips. The overall impression – besides the initial _hot damn_ – is one of unwavering strength. Solid. Enduring. A force that will not be moved. And he’s watching her like the sun rises and sets at her whim.

“Andraste’s tits,” he swears as she tries to swallow the whimper that rises in throat. His feet, a shade paler than the broad expanse of his chest, peek out from beneath the dark cloth hem as he pads across the distance that separates them. It always astounds her that he can move so softly, so gracefully in or out of the bulk of his armor – but he does. He moves like he’s dancing. “You can’t look at me like that, you _can’t_ ,” he exhales gruffly as presses his mouth to hers. Catheryn groans, melting instantly, fingers sliding across the warm flesh of his chest and twining through the dark curls of hair growing there.

She wants to devour him, to hold him tight and tell him with lips and tongue and teeth that she can look at him however she damn well pleases. Instead, she whines, chasing the warmth of his mouth as he withdraws.

“Patience, beloved,” Cullen murmurs behind her. “We’ve got the whole night ahead of us.”

It takes a moment for his words to penetrate the fog of desire but once they do they pull her up short. “What?” she asks, twisting to look back at him. “How?” she adds suspiciously, because she knows for a Maker blighted fact that there are at least two last minute strategy meetings planned for this evening.

“Because we don’t know how tomorrow will play out,” Cullen admits softly and it’s the closest he’s ever coming to voicing her own fear – no, her certainty - that this cause will take her life by the end. It’s disquieting in a way that her own belief has never been, the quiet fear in his voice suddenly seeming the outcome so much more solid, so much more sure.  “And if… Maker’s breath… “ he jerks his head violently, one hand gripping the back of his neck so tightly that she knows there will be bruises there in the morning. “If we all die tomorrow, I would not have our last night be spent pouring over maps and repeating strategy that we’ve always discussed at least a dozen times already.” He’s snarling by the end, a shudder snapping through his body like the crack of a whip.  Her first instinct is to step towards him, to reach out and touch him, but Thom holds her back with a gentle touch to her hip.

“We’ll not do anyone any fucking good if we’re wound to the breaking point,” Thom points out, the deep rumble of his voice in his chest the very epitome of reasonable. “And while a quick fumble in the dark might relieve the tension that’s not what any of us need.”

Catheryn stiffens slightly in his arms, her cheeks burning at the bland observation. A quick fumble in the dark has been all that they’ve managed in the two weeks since they left Skyhold. It’d relieved some of the physical tension, eased the desire that burned in her gut and made her body tremor every time they touched her.  The relief had been a hollow, short lived thing. The want had been back by morning: as thick and heavy as the humidity in the air, clogging her every breath until she thought she might drown.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t sleep side by side. Or at least that is what she thinks. It’s hard to lie between them at night and not touch them, not curl into their bodies and brush her lips against their skin. It’s hard to have them so very, very close and yet at the same time have them so far away as to almost not be there at all. She wouldn’t have thought the dozen days between the fateful game of Wicked Grace and their departure from Skyhold would be enough to cause such problems – after all, she went the first two years of the Inquisition’s existence without having sex with anyone – but it does. It’s not just the sex. It’s the touching. It’s the little intimate caresses that her soul lives on, every single touch and gentle kiss building upon the last to form some type of safety net around her: a reminder that she is not alone. Within her quarters and the protective walls of her mountain fortress she can get away with it. Not here. It’s not just her and a few others. It’s not even just her entire army. It’s everyone – every major ally, every favor, every rag tag group that she has bound to her – all presence in the same time and space.

What is tolerated and affectionately gossiped about in Skyhold is not appropriate here. Not when one misstep could lead to someone pulling their support at the wrong place or the wrong time. Catheryn doesn’t give a fuck what they think about her – not anymore – but she won’t let her people die because she needed to get laid and flaunt her relationships in Thedas’ face.

So she grits her teeth and settles for the quick fumble in the dark. Settles for Thom’s breath panting against her neck as he ruts to completion against the leather covered curve of her ass with his hand shoved down the front of her half unlaced breeches. His fingers plunging and stroking and driving her to a quick and sudden climax as she watches Cullen spill his seed across his hand and particularly lush curtain of rashvine while he keeps watch – both on them and on the camp in the distance, where their absence is sure to be noticed at any moment. 

She settles for that. She settles for crawling into her bedroll at night. Her single, solitary bedroll with theirs laid out next to hers, inches of propriety separating them.

Maker, what a fucking mess.

It’s her mess, though - every, aching, wonderful, maddening bit of it – and she’s going to hold on tight every agonizing second because it’ll be someone else’s mess all too soon.

“Stop!”  Cullen’s voice cracks across the tent, the full weight of his Commander’s voice making her jerk in Thom’s arms, eyes going wide as he abruptly releases his neck and crosses the distance separating them. “Stop,” he repeats as he grabs her face between his hands and tilts it upwards until she has no choice but to meet his gaze. The beautiful golden shine of eyes, eyes that bubble and pop and burn like molten gold, are a little wild around the edges. Letting out a shaking breath he presses his forehead to hers, their breath warm and mingling against their lips. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” he begs softly. “Just stop.”

“Even if it is true?”

Thom’s grip tightens on her hips. It pinches, his fingers pressing hard enough that she can feel the dull, grounding pain of it beneath two hardened layers of leather and a thin mail shirt of everite.

“It’s not true yet,” Cullen growls. He crowds into her, into them both, until she can feel the warm line of his body from the tangle of their boots to slightly uncomfortable press of her leather clad boobs to the hard ridges of his armor. “Don’t make me say good bye,” he adds quietly, so quietly that she almost misses it in between the carefully measured exhales that sweep across her lips. “If this is to be our last night I would have us be together – but don’t spend the whole night saying goodbye. I _can’t_ …”

“I’ve already done that once, my lady. I won’t be doing it again.” She inhales sharply at the finality of the words. They could – should – be harsh and biting but there is so much regret in Thom’s voice that there is room for nothing else.  She can feel it, almost more than she can feel the man himself, resting in a warm line along her spine.

“Have more faith in yourself, beloved,” Cullen murmurs. “Please.”

“You’ll not be facing him alone,” Thom reminds her gruffly. “I am ever your shield, my lady, until my very last breath.”

_I’ll never leave you. Not again._

The promise goes unspoken but she can hear it anyway. She hears it likes she’s heard it countless times, whispered into her hair and the curve of her neck as she clutches to him, the terror of her nightmares fresh and living inside of her skull. She hears it as she’s always heard it but this time she hears something else. She hears his death.

This time instead of just _I’ll never leave you_ she also hears _If you go, I go too._

But really that has always been the truth. Even if she didn’t necessarily hear it that way. It’s not something he’s ever had to say, not so explicitly. How many times has he stepped between her and possible death? How many times has he suffered injuries, has his body been broken by blows meant for her?

The number, she knows, is too high to count.

At her front Cullen inhales sharply and turns away. He’s quick, but not quick enough to hide the sharp play of emotions across his face. Catheryn catches him with a gentle touch to his chin, her thumb sliding along the rough, stubble marked line of his jaw and he flinches beneath her touch and presses his eyes firmly shut. Thom’s regret is solid and warm, as real as the beating of his heart but Cullen’s is cold and sharp and unrelenting. It mingles with sorrow and envy and pulls at the strong, handsome lines of his face and makes them hasher, more stark, the lines of his nose and cheekbones seeming to jut from his face in the shift of light and shadow cast by the candles that light the tent. The regret makes him hard but beneath her touch she can feel him tremble. If he opens his eyes she will see it, see it as clearly as High Dragon flying against a cloudless sky.

But he doesn’t open his eyes and she doesn’t see it.

She doesn’t need to though.

“Alright,” she murmurs and just that word is enough to make him sag into her hand. “No goodbyes.”

“No goodbyes,” Thom agrees gruffly.

“No goodbyes,” Cullen whispers but when he kisses her all she can taste is sorrow.

 


	2. Say You Will Remember Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

She wakes suddenly, Corypheus’ roar as he bursts through the doors of Redcliffe still ringing in her ears, as familiar as the beat of her heart.

 _Not real_ , Catheryn reminds herself as she lies trembling in the too small bed. _Not real. It didn’t happen. It never happened. You didn’t let it. They’re still alive._ She repeats the words until they become a mantra, a prayer to absentee gods.

“Catheryn…?” Cullen’s voice is rough with sleep as it rumbles in her ear, the stubble on his jaw catching her hair as he rubs it across her head.

“I’m alright,” she manages to gasp despite the terror squeezing at her chest. “It was just a dream. I’m alright,” she repeats, desperate to believe it.

“Which one?” Where Cullen’s voice is rough, Thom’s is low and soothing. It’s the voice he uses in the stables with a difficult horse or in the garden as he offers up his newest creation to the child who always watches wide-eyed from the bushes, too scared to join in the other children’s play. Everything about that voice is calculated to settle nerves, to reassure. _You are safe,_ it says, _I will not let you be harmed._ “Which one, my love?” he repeats softly, curling his fingers possessively over the rise of her hip. The touch of his hand is steadying, the force of his grip grounding against the laughter and screams that echo behind her eyes.

She shudders, jaw tightening against the bile that burns in her throat. “Redcliffe,” she manages to get out. Behind her Cullen continues to stroke his cheek against the top of her head in a feline like gesture, the flat planes of his chest pressed against the bare skin of her shoulder blades. “But the Nightmare was there too. I could hear him.” It might be the sight of her loved ones dead in a ruin of blood and lyrium that haunts her dreams most often but it’s the Nightmare’s voice, deep and jagged like broken glass, that she hears day and night. It whispers across her ears and slithers down her spine, an endless litany of doubt and failure that breaks through her mind at the most inopportune moments. If she had not had both Dorian and Solas examine her at length and reassure her that she was – and is – entirely herself she would think that she had managed to bring a shard of the demon out of the Fade with her.

_They are all weak. They are fractured and broken already – how can you hope to save them? They’ll fall as all men fall, ground beneath the heel of their new God._

“… Catheryn.” The rough rumble of Cullen’s voice vibrates through her, knocking the demon’s words away.

“I’m alright,” she repeats even though all three of them know exactly how untrue her statement is.

“I’m right here,” Cullen whispers into the hair above her ear. “I won’t leave you.”

  _But I will leave you_.

The realization is enough to steal her breath away, letting the terror of her nightmare tighten its grip around her chest, squeezing her ribs until she can all but hear them crack. Maker, all of the times she has heard him mouth those words, all of the times she has pulled that promise close to her heart and huddled around out… she never thought what it might be like for him. For this beautiful, fractured man who holds her heart in his hands. He is the Inquisition’s Commander. More than a position it is who he is – it is the line that kept him from drowning, the stone upon which he has rebuilt himself brick by aching brick. It has given him purpose and courage. It has even given him a place to hide as he steals back shadows of what he might have been - dreams and potential stolen by the horrors of Kinloch and Kirkwall. It is who he is, as woven into his soul as surely as she is.

She hates leaving him. She always has. But, she is realizing, it is not so much that she is leaving – it is that he cannot follow. He is the Commander and his place is with the troops and hers… hers is wherever the greatest threat exists. Tomorrow that will mean Samson and Corypheus – and she will face them without him.

And when she dies, she will leave him behind, and he will have to pick up the pieces.

“My lady…?” Thom’s worry breaks her from her thoughts, the callused pads of his fingers tender as they wipe the tears streaming silently down her cheeks. “What is it?”

Catheryn shakes her head. She can’t. She can’t. She can’t. _She can’t_. How can she say it? How can she voice the feelings burning in her chest and throat when she can’t even think them? She can’t or she’ll break. She’ll break and she’ll run and she’ll take them with her.

She’d let Thedas burn for them, she realizes. She’d let the entire world be trapped beneath Corypheus’ heel if he’d let her take those she loves and never bother her again.

It’s a dangerous thought to have.

“My love?” Thom’s fingers nudge at the bottom of her chin, trying to get her to look up at him. Catheryn shakes her head violently – or as violently as she can with Cullen’s face pressed to the top of her skull.

“I don’t… I can’t… I _need_ …”

 “What do you need, beloved?”

“ _You_!” the word leaves her mouth before she can stop it, an anguished cry that rings through the sanctuary of their tent. She reaches behind her, fingers scrambling across the solid muscles of his thigh until she finds enough flesh to dig her fingers into. Cullen hisses into her hair, the hand splayed across her stomach tightening in response to her touch. She can’t take him into battle with her. She can’t face Corypheus with her Commander at her side. She can’t have him then. But she can have him now.  “You,” Catheryn repeats. She raises the hand not holding onto Cullen to curl around the muscled mass of Thom’s wrist, holding the other man’s hand to her face as she drags her eyes open and stares at him in the soft glow of candlelight. “I need you. I need _both_ of you.”

 It’s ridiculous, she knows. They have a battle to fight tomorrow. They need to rest, to get what sleep they may. Plus, she’s already had them once and not long ago at that. She can still taste the bitter and salt of Thom’s seed on the back of her tongue. She hadn’t meant for him to finish there but once she’d had his cock in her mouth she hadn’t been able to stop and he hadn’t the desire or strength to make her. And Cullen… she always forgets how big he is – and not just below the belt. She walks, works, and sleeps beside him day and night and she forgets how he towers over her, how his shoulders are double – if not triple – the width of hers. She forgets, always, until he is over her, the enormity of his body covering her utterly as he drives between her legs.

“How?” Thom asks pragmatically even as Cullen assures,

“You have us,” as if he can read the thoughts in her head. They always have been able to speak without words.

Catheryn exhales shakily and clutches harder at them, gripping until she can feel the blunt tips of her nails break through their skin. “Like this,” she whispers hoarsely and lest they miss her meaning she rocks between them. “Exactly like this.”

Beneath her fingers Thom goes deathly still, staring at her intently as Cullen inhales sharply behind her. “My lady,” Thom asks, “We’ve never done anything of the sort. You’ve never…”

“I have,” she admits fiercely, grip tightening even further. “Once. In the Circle.”

Clearly, the man in front of her doesn’t find that reassuring. “Is this something you really want? We don’t…”

“I don’t _want_ it,” Catheryn corrects harshly, forcing the words past the weight in her chest. “I _need_ it. I need both of you. Together. Now. Tonight.” _Before tomorrow_ , she adds in silent desperation.

Both men are still for a moment, half readable thoughts flicking through the pale expanse of Thom’s blue-green eyes like quick flashes of a fish’s scales on the surface of the water. She can’t see Cullen but she can feel him thinking.

“If we do this,” the Commander speaks suddenly, the deep rumble of her voice making her start. “We’ll have to turn her around.”

Thom’s eyes flicker upward and he snorts, seeming unable to stop himself. “Not your style?”

“Uh… it’s not… I, um… I’ve no experience on the matter and…”

Thom lets out a bark of surprise, eyeing the other man incredulously over the top of her head. “Maker’s balls, you mean to tell me that you’ve fucked your way through an entire brothel but you’ve never had your cock up someone’s arse?”

Cullen blushes. She can feel the heat of it against her skull even as her mind scrambles through Thom’s words. She can still hear them ringing in her head but she doesn’t understand them.

“Maker’s breath… it wasn’t something that occurred to me at the time!” he retorts, his entire body flushing against hers. “I don’t want to hurt her,” Cullen adds, his words soft against the tangle of her hair.

Thom’s face softens, the amusement sliding away and morphing in something tender as he stares at the both of them. “Aye,” he agrees gently. “Are you alright with this otherwise?”

 “Yes.”

The word makes Catheryn melt between them, her body going limp with relief and Thom’s lips twitch in a smile. “Do you still have that elfroot salve in your pack?” he murmurs, tipping his head so that she can taste his breath, feel the whisper of his lips against her and just that touch is enough to make her shiver, to stoke the want that words and frustration have banked. Wordlessly she nods. “Good.” He kisses her then, something tender and hard all in the same moment, a brand that she can feel burning against the flesh of her heart. “Turn over,” he whispers into her mouth. “I’ll be right back.”

 _Fucked your way through a brothel_? Part of her wants to ask as she shifts in Cullen’s arms, twisting until her face is pressed to his chest. _Are you sure you’re alright with this?_ The other part of her wonders as the faint dusting of golden curls tickle at her nose as she drags her lips across his skin. She should ask, she should…

But whatever it is that she thinks she needs to ask is buried beneath the warmth of Cullen’s touch as he drags callus roughened hands up the curve of her waist until he can run his thumbs against the underside of her breasts as his fingers span the top of her ribcage. She shudders against the touch, instinctively bowing beneath the gentle pressure and letting out a little gasp as the pebbled rosebuds of her nipples brush up against the planes of his chest.

“Maker’s breath,” Cullen groans as tightens his grip, thumbs sweeping higher. His mouth is hot against her skin, teeth nipping in sharp little pricks across the expanse of her collarbone and down into the valley between her breasts. Catheryn clutches at him, fingers scrambling up the hard lines of muscles until they reach the tangled weave of his hair. She tugs gently, her nails dragging against his scalp, and his answering growl is deep enough that she can feel the vibrations of it all the way down her spine. He bites down on the fleshy underside of her breast, hard enough to make her clutch at his head and gasp as she can feel his teeth all but press together through a tenuous layer of her skin.

Catheryn swears and her entire body shakes as she clings to Cullen, his tongue rough and gentle as it laves over the mark surely blooming on her chest.  

“So fucking beautiful.” Thom’s growl is even deeper than Cullen’s, gruff and gravely and rough like smoke. The cot creaks beneath the addition of his weight, the makeshift bed moving and dipping as she feels the heat of him curl up against the exposed skin of her back. The callused tip of his finger is gentle, reverent even, as it trails down the curve of her spine, goosebumps pebbling in its wake. The brush of his beard as he follows his finger with his lips is enough to make her squirm.

 “Thom…”

“Right here love,” he murmurs into the small of her back as his fingers trail over skin with tentative, light touches that make the blood boil and race beneath the confines of her skin. Cullen shifts at her front, the heavy length of him digging into the curve of her thigh as his fingers settle around her hips, holding her still as he draws the throbbing peak of her nipple between his teeth.

The dichotomy of it all makes her mind spin. The gentleness of Thom’s touch as his hands ghost over her flesh and the sharp tug of Cullen’s teeth alone are enough to send her soaring.

“Maker, she’s soaked,” Thom chuckles at her gasp and crooks his fingers between her legs, parting her folds enough for her to feel the cool brush of the evening air against the tenderest of flesh. “I need her on her back,” he mutters after another second and part of Catheryn crows at the desperate sort of brittleness edging the growl, the tremor of barely held control making her heart beat so loudly in her chest it’s a fucking miracle it doesn’t burst through her ribs

Cullen hesitates for a moment, his tongue flickering over and over nipple until she’s gasping and shivering and gripping his hair so hard that no doubt there will be strands stuck to her fingers when he pulls away. And then suddenly Cullen’s hands are tightening over the curve of her hip and she’s lying on her back, the curve of the canvas ceiling undulating in the light of the single candle flickering on the table amidst the remains of their meal. Cullen’s eyes glow gold, molten and fierce, the scarred end of his lip pulling up in a predatory smirk as he stares down at her. She’s caught, as surely as a bird before a serpent, right up until the moment that Thom’s tongue replaces his fingers.

“ _Fucking… Maker…_!” she manages to gasp out as her fingers scramble wildly across the covers, desperate for something to hold. Cullen catches one of her hands as Thom’s deep rumble of amusement bows her back with vibrations that sing right up the center of her.

It doesn’t take him long to get her there, the sure, quick strokes of his tongue and the teasing touches of his fingers enough to drive Andraste herself to madness. The strength of Cullen’s fingers winding through her grip and pulling her arms above her head as he leans over her breasts again is enough to make her struggle and shake, lost to everything but their touch – a touch that whisks the shadows of the world away, banishing the things that were and are and might-have-been and grounding her firmly in nothing but the beating, tingling vessel of her own flesh.

In the end it is Thom’s finger, slick and warm, easing past the tight ring of muscle that proves to be one sensation too much and tips her over the edge. As she falls, Cullen sucks a nipple deep into his mouth and bites down hard enough that she can feel his teeth break her skin. It washes over her in a bloom of pain that feeds into the heady rush of pleasure bursting through her skin.

“Beautiful.” Thom’s voice, hoarse and pleased rumbles along the skin of her inner thigh.

Catheryn blinks. And then blinks again.

Slowly, so blighted slowly it seems, the tent comes back into focus. The view of the ceiling is obscured by a tangle of blond hair and Cullen’s breath is hot against her ear. His grip on her hands has loosened but he hasn’t released her, the tension in his body a stark contrast to the limpness in hers.

“Glad you think so,” she manages to get out. She meant it to be teasing but staring down the line of her body, past the bloom of bruises and bites, to where Thom regards her from between the frame of her thighs it comes out a little more breathless and heartfelt.

“Always, my lady,” he utters seriously. “And when you…” Thom shakes his head and she can’t help but shiver at the sensation of his beard rubbing against the inside of her thigh. “That I get to watch you – that I get to _know_ that you are experiencing that because of me. It is a gift,” he whispers.

Cullen nods against her neck. “Every time,” he agrees quietly, pulling away enough so that she can see his face. He kisses her softly, his hand flexing around hers. Down between her legs Thom moves his fingers, easing a pair of them in and out of her, stretching her slowly and carefully.

“How is that?” he asks when Cullen pulls back.

“Good. It’s… good.” Even to her own ears her voice is high and breathy.

 It’s enough to slowly drive her mad.

“Please,” she gasps, squirming as Thom crooks a trio of fingers inside of her, the pressure so tantalizingly close to where she wants it.

“Please,” she begs as Cullen’s free hand skirts along the curve of her hip bone and small tingles of lightning jump off her skin and sizzle in the air.

“ _Please_ ,” she all but cries when they both press kisses to her skin, sucking marks into her flesh.

Somehow she ends up back on her side, trapped between the heat and strength of their bodies on either side of her. “Are you sure you want this?” Thom asks, his voice reduced to little more than thunder rumbling on the horizon.

Catheryn keens as he withdraws his fingers, pressing back against him, searching for… anything. “Yes,” she gasps. “Fucking Maker, _yes_.”

“Easy,” he murmurs. “Relax, love.”

Maker, like they’d made it possible to relax. Catheryn laughs quietly, caught between a sob and a moan as she feels his hands dip between the cheeks of her ass and pull them open. Her forehead hits the flat of Cullen’s chest hard enough that the meaty thump of flesh on flesh echoes through the tent. “Please…”

She can feel Thom’s hand shaking as he guides his cock, a gasp leaving her mouth and her fingers tightening on the taunt muscles of Cullen’s biceps as the other man eases into her body. It is different… and yet familiar. He feels bigger, this way, pulling and stretching at her in a way that stops just this side of pain. Thom’s arm snakes around her chest, clutching her close as he bottoms out.

“Blessed Maker….” He breathes shakily into the air above her head. “Don’t move. I need a minute.”

“How is it?”

Thom inhales sharply, his entire body shuddering at Cullen’s question, and then exhales deliberately. Twice more he breathes deep and eases the air from his lungs before he dares to answer. “Tight. So fucking tight. Like she’s got my cock in a vise,” he laughs quietly. “Like she’s trying to spit me out and swallow me up all at the same time.” He takes another breath. “If we’re going to do this…”

“Void if I’ll stop now,” Cullen mutters and Thom laughs again. Catheryn can’t do much more than whimper between them, the deep wash of their voices as torturous as the touch of their skin.

“Oh… _fuck_ …” Catheryn’s fingers claw desperately at Cullen’s skin as he presses up into her warmth. It’s tighter this way and she can feel him fight for every millimeter of depth, no matter she’s so wet that the bedding beneath her is damp with the juices they’ve coaxed from her body.

Cullen doesn’t have enough air left in his body to swear. But she can hear it, feel it, soundless and wordless between them as all the air leaves his lungs in a punch and his fingers tighten so hard on her hips that she knows there will be bruises there by dawn.

She shifts between them, tilting her hips and dragging her leg up over Cullen’s. The movement, however slight, is enough to drive them both just that little bit deeper and they all gasp.

“ _Maker_ …” Cullen finally manages.

“Aye,” Thom agrees and rolls his hips.

They find their momentum slowly and still it almost too much. Too much, too little. Full, Maker, she is so fucking full, stretched so tight that part of her fears that she’ll burst if they use a hair more force or a touch more speed – and part of her sure that she’ll die if they don’t actually _move._

They find their way though, the three of them, moving together in the scarcely lit tent. Here, in the stillness, it is just them – a silence broken only by the sounds of their joining and the soft cries and ragged breaths that their mouths can’t hold back.

Catheryn’s orgasm comes unexpectedly, crashing upon her in that space between one moment and the next. It’s different, harder, every muscle in body locking and seizing as the pleasure rolls through her. Cullen cries out, strangled and long as the tightening of her body brings him and Thom jerks behind her, his grip momentarily tightening so much that she can’t breathe as she feels them both pulse inside of her.

They’re a mess when they finally pull away from each other but they don’t bother to do anything but rearrange themselves carefully upon the cot and Thom’s whole arm is shaking as he pulls a blanket over the three of them. It’s still hours until dawn but they don’t sleep. They don’t speak either. They just lay there, curled together in a sticky, itchy mess beneath a scratchy blanket.

Sometimes there are no words that can be said.

And when the edges of the ten begin to glow with the approaching sunrise and Cullen pulls back the blanket and reaches for the half-dried cloth and the bucket of water near the bed Catheryn can’t stop herself from pulling him back and pressing her lips to his.

They don’t speak as they rise and dress and eat food leftover from the night before but they don’t need to.

Not all promises can be kept.

And there is more than one way to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay in getting this up! Daylight Savings sucks ass. That is all.


	3. Into the Fray

The sounds of battle, audible despite the mile of thick jungle foliage and rushing water that stands between them and the main camp, are enough to make Catheryn dig her hands into the soft leather of her leggings until she can feel her flesh bruise underneath. It’s either that or dig them into her palms and she’ll have need of her hands today. Bloody hands make it difficult to wield her staff like she is accustomed to and she wants to go as long as she possibly can before she has to knock back a healing potion. She wants to be able to feel the bruises from Cullen’s grip on her hips, wants to feel the dozen or more bruising bites that trace the curve of her neck and breasts, wants to feel the pleasant ache between her legs for as long as she possibly can. She needs it – needs the reminder that just hours ago they had all been alive.

Now Cullen is gone, the bulk of the army with him. There’s a small force still stationed at the camp, and the bulk of the healers waiting just down the hill for the worst of the fighting to be over. Scout Harding and a fair number of Leliana’s agents are behind her, buzzing in and out of the command tent and making it look – and sound – like a kicked over hive of bees. Catheryn doesn’t have to look to know that the Iron Bull is with them, close enough to keep an eye on her without crowding, and in a place where all of his Ben Hassarath training might be put to the most use while they wait. Last time she checked Thom was with them, the experience of his years in the Orlesian army proving a practical counterbalance to Bull’s spy-and-mercenary instincts.  Solas is just off to the side, sitting with his back against the jut of the cliff, his eyes closed and face smooth. Whether he’s walking the Fade or simply meditating she’s not quite sure but she supposes that it doesn’t matter. Not right now. Not when all they’re doing is waiting.

Waiting for the moment that word arrives with the news that Samson and Corypheus have been spotted.

“Your Worship!”

Catheryn jumps a little at the sudden interruption to her thoughts, her hand instinctively going to the smooth metal and wood of the staff slung across her back as she turns to the soldier who has come up beside her. The woman in question holds out her hands, the gloves damp and stained with blood. The rest of her armor is little better, the gore alone enough to tell Catheryn where she’s been. “How goes the battle, Captain?” she asks. Her voice doesn’t shake. It doesn’t. But only because she doesn’t let it.

“We’re holding, your worship. Barely.” The captain winces and wipes at the sweat beading along her forehead, leaving a streak of red in its place. “The Red Templars are fighting harder than ever with their master nearby.”

It’s not unexpected but Catheryn scowls anyway. “Was there anything else?”

The Captain shook her head. “No, ser. Not from me anyway. I’m sure the crows moved much faster than I did but Commander Cullen thought you might like a personal update. The Templars are fighting hard but so are we. We’ll put the bastards in the ground.”

“I’m sure we will,” Catheryn agrees, because, Maker help her, she’ll do just about anything to wipe Corypheus and his forces off the face of the earth. “Thank you for keeping me informed, Captain.”

The soldier slaps her fist over her heart in sharp salute. “Andraste guide you, Inquisitor.”

Catheryn watches her go, no doubt to give a more detailed, mechanics laden report to those in the tent. She’s right, of course, the news from the crows will be fresher but there’s something about the perspective of someone who has been in the thick of things that can’t quite be replicated in code and parchment.

“I wonder,” Morrigan drawls as she appears seemingly out of nowhere, nothing more than a whisper of the wind in Catheryn’s ear to warn her before the witch speaks, “Is it Andraste your soldiers invoke during battle? Or does a more immediate name come to their lips?”

 “I don’t think anyone is mistaking me for the Maker, Morrigan.”

Morrigan raises a delicate eyebrow and focuses on her face, the bright, piercing yellow of her eyes gleaming with a look that always makes Catheryn feel like the witch is secretly plotting to pick her teeth with Catheryn’s bones.

“Of course not. You’re neither absent nor arrogant – and you keep your promises.”

“That is not as reassuring as you seem to think it,” Catheryn mutters. It’s bad enough that everyone sees her as some sort of semi-divine being sent by the Maker’s Bride to save the world. She’s not sure she could handle it if people thought her to be an actual goddess.

“I didn’t…”

“Hey, Boss!”

The Iron Bull’s roar cuts through Morrigan’s words and the distant sounds of battle. Catheryn turns unerring, pivoting toward the sound in time to see him duck out of the command tent. His massive frame folds and twists in an elegant, nimble gesture that gets him – and the massive dawnstone axe strapped to his back - out without tangling his horns in the canvas.

“What news?” she asks when he’s close enough that she doesn’t have to shout. It’s a stupid question of course. So fucking stupid. There’s only one thing that will put that look on his face – a twisted grimace that is equal parts fury, satisfaction, worry, and anticipation. Someone has found Corypheus. She doesn’t even need to glance at the small ribbon of paper he holds out to her. “Show me on a map,” she says instead and he jerks his head before leading her and Morrigan back to the tent.

The map there is smaller than the one on the War Table but larger than the one she keeps rolled on the shelves in her chambers. Unlike both of those maps this one is entirely of the Arbor Wilds, the wild expanse of jungle recorded in exquisite detail. In addition to being good spies, excellent scouts, and capable assassins Leliana’s people also seem to have a flair for the artistic. Not that she’s complaining, mind you. It’s rather reassuring when you’re wandering around in the middle of nowhere to suddenly go _Ah! I recognize that tree!_

“Here.” The Iron Bull’s grey finger stabs bluntly at a spot on the map to the north and slight west of the main battle. “Some of the scouts spotted him heading into these ruins.”

 Catheryn stares at the map for a moment, its surface littered with dozens of markers noting everything from the position of troops to supply caches to where the Red Templars have dug their blighted latrines. After a moment her finger drops to the thick paper and moves among the markers. “The most direct route would take us straight through the fighting.”

The Iron Bull grunts, his face twisting into a grimace. No doubt he’d realized without even looking at the map and, despite his penchant for knocking off heads and sundry other assorted limbs in great fountains of blood, he looks less than pleased at the possibility. “The scouts have already offered to clear you a path.”

“And have more people die for me?” Catheryn shakes her head. “No.”

Morrigan’s sound of outrage is enough to make everyone around the table look up. “But if your scouts have reported accurately then I believe those to be the ruins of the Temple of Mythal – a place of worship out of elven legend! If Corypheus seeks it then the eluvian he covets lies within. It would be madness to let him acquire it!”

“I’m not going to let him…”

“Then we must take the quickest route!”

Catheryn takes a deep breath and resists the urge to punch Morrigan in the face. Barely. “And you think that wading our way through Red Templars up to our fucking eyeballs is going to be the _quickest route_?” she snaps instead.

With a sharp flash of her teeth, Morrigan waves her hand dismissively. “They are soldiers. It is their duty. If they are any good at their job they will survive.”

“ _No_ ,” Catheryn repeats with force, sparing a moment to glare at the Witch of the Wilds before returning her gaze to the details of the map. “Their efforts are better spent elsewhere. I – _we_ – will manage well enough on our own.” Because despite the fact that they get along as well as fire and water, Catheryn has no doubt that Morrigan will be going with her.

Corypheus is not the only power in this jungle searching for an Eluvian.

“Here.” She trails her finger along the map, outlining a different route. “It's not as direct but we’ll skirt the edges of the fighting and be able to move more quickly.”

“And what of the Templars we are sure to encounter?”

Catheryn laughs, the sudden burst of noise echoing around the tent. She laughs until it grows broken and sharp, until tears sting at the corners of her eyes and her ribs strain uncomfortably in her chest. “Oh, Morrigan,” she mocks as Thom comes up behind her, pushing through the scouts until his hand rests subtly on her hip. She leans into his touch, laughter still trickling from her lips. “If a few corrupted Templars worry you then Eluvian or no, you should not go into those ruins with me.” Thom’s grip tightens on her hip and across the table the Iron Bull growls low in his throat, a vicious noise that makes all those near him take a step back.

Morrigan stares. “Tis not the Templars I am worried about,” she finally mutters, looking away. “But we will do this your way. You are, after all, the Inquisitor.” Around them the air seems to shake, the pop and roar of a nearby explosion filling the air. The witch flashes a feral smile, the elegant arch of her eyebrow rising as she adds, “Let us hope that we reach the temple _before_ the entire forest is reduced to ash.”

 

* * *

 

Thom hates the jungle. He hates it. It’s hot and damp and there’s fucking water and gnarled roots and fallen trees that he has to clamber over and wade through every single time he turns around. In heavy armor. While hacking away at Red Templars. He hates it and he wouldn’t be anywhere else. It doesn’t matter that he’s fighting with a constant stream of sweat trickling down the back of his neck despite the cooling glyphs glowing against the metal of his armor. It doesn’t matter that his side aches and his arm is sore. It doesn’t matter that the whining of the flies and other insects following the fresh spill of blood are louder than the screams of the dying and the crash and bang of battle. Maker’s fucking ass, it doesn’t even matter that he’s swallowed more than handful of the blighted things. He’s exactly where he needs to be.

He’s with her.

Living or dying, it’s where he belongs. It will always be where he belongs.

Out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of Catheryn on the ridge of land above him, staff whirling around her body in a blur as she rains fire and lightning down upon the Templars scurrying about on the jungle floor like ants pouring out of a kicked ant hill. He turns, grunting as he plants his foot on the dead Templar lying before him and yanks his sword out from between the ill-fitting lines of his armor.

“Behemoths!” Solas’ deep voice cuts through the grunts and crashes of fighting, his warning enough to bring Thom’s head whipping upright.

“Right here, assholes!” the Iron Bull’s roar, more laughter than anything else, rings out a second later as the reaver plows through the remaining Templars. The wide swing of his double bladed axe rips through their bodies and fills the air in front of him with a spray of blood and tissue.  Both of the behemoths pause in their movements, hesitating between the rise upon which the three mages have positioned themselves and the jungle floor where two warriors wait, one of them brandishing a pink, blood covered weapon and grinning like a lunatic. “The Iron- _fucking_ -Bull is waiting!”

Thom can’t stop the snort that huffs through his lips as he resettles his shield and rounds on the behemoths – who have apparently decided that the mages on the hill are better pickings. Fuckers. He’s about a half second behind Bull, the massive Qunari leaping over a tree root twisting out of the ground higher than Thom’s hip and letting the momentum carrying him forward as the blade of his axe makes contact with the rear monster’s leg. The sound of the lyrium growths cracking is audible, even over the obscenities falling out of Bull’s mouth, and Thom roars wordlessly as he joins the fray, blade stabbing upward through a shower of red crystals.

Between the two of them they manage to keep one of the behemoths from climbing the slope. Logically, _logically_ , Thom knows that Catheryn and Solas will have absolutely no issue dealing with it. He’s seen them take down a pride demon by themselves and those bastards frequently made behemoths look about as threatening as a baby fennec. Plus, they have Morrigan. He doesn’t trust the witch but he’s reasonably sure that she’ll not try and kill them until _after_ she has what she wants.

Which is in the ruins. With Corypheus.

Maker’s fucking balls.

Caught between his thoughts and keeping half an eye on the mages uphill his foot slips out from underneath him, the rhythm of battle lost beneath his concerns. Thom curses as he goes down, his knee slamming into the sharp outcropping of stormheart peeking out from underneath a tangle of overgrown roots. The faint whistle of air moving above his head is his only warning and he gets his shield up, barely, the force of the behemoth’s blow slamming it back into his armor at an awkward angle. Gasping at the sudden pain in his chest he feels, finally, the force of the battle overtake him.

Thom is good at many things. He’s good at cards, at drinking, at fucking. He can turn the right piece of wood into a masterpiece and he can dance a pretty mean waltz.

But the thing he is best at is killing.

Always has been.

He stills beneath the crushing blow, the sound of his blood rushing through his ears so loud that it drowns out everything else. For a moment he kneels there beneath the rain of lyrium shards suspended in the space of his own heartbeat as the world snaps into deadly clarity around him.

And then he explodes.

Ignoring the ache in his arm – _shock, nothing more, shake it off_ – Thom shoves the behemoth’s arm away with the flat of his shield, lunging upward in the brief opening and gritting his teeth against the sensations that shiver down his sword as the blade shears through the red lyrium that has replaced what was once a man’s arm. Vaguely he notes it falling beside him and feels the shriek of the lyrium as it shatters, the noise of it dancing on his eardrums like splinters of glass. A shift of his hand and he’s dragging the blade downwards, sweeping across the creature’s chest. The everite scratches at the surface, dragging deep gouges in the corrupted stone with its passing.

“Incoming!” the deep bellow of the Iron Bull’s roar pierces the quiet that has enveloped him and Thom reacts instantly, instincts honed by many long days spent fighting at the Qunari’s side. Dropping into a crouch he lets his momentum carrying him downhill, spinning beneath the behemoth’s other arm and slamming his shield into the back of the monster’s legs.

It goes down, the earth shaking beneath the force of its landing and half a second later the scream of the lyrium burns through the air as Bull’s pink axe buries itself in the center of the behemoth’s mass. Uphill of their position another death keen screeches through the air as the trio of mages deal with their foe. The maelstrom of magic swept out in a concussive force that made him stagger, the waves of it pushing at his skin like rushing water.

“Get your head in the game, Thom,” Bull grunts as he heaves the axe back and yanks it out of the lifeless pile of fractured lyrium. “She’s going to need you.”

“Yeah.”

“Thom!” Catheryn manages to make scrambling down the incline look graceful. “Are you alright?”

He lets the rote reply that rises to his lips die as he catches sight of the strained lines at the sides of her eyes, her mouth pressed in a flat, bloodless line. “Fucker broke some ribs,” he grunts out instead. His fingers fumble at the latch to the small potions box hooked to his belt. He’s got to press in to open it and the movement puts unwelcome pressure on his side, the slight force sending a stabbing pain up through his lungs. “I’ll be fine,” he adds, waving off Solas as the other mage approaches, hands held outwards in wordless offer of healing. “Save your strength.”

The elfroot based potion goes down easily enough, thick and bitter. It tastes like shit and his tongue is going to tingle for a time but it’s miles better than drowning in his own blood – which is where he’d been headed, judging by the gurgling echo in his chest and the way his breath was starting to taste bright and metallic.

Maker’s balls, he hates rib injuries. They go to shit faster than a swarm of flies.

“Alright?” Catheryn repeats quietly when he opens his eyes after several long minutes and a second potion. He can feel more than see the others across the untidy clearing, picking their way through the carnage to the path on the other side. For a moment it is just them. Just him and her and he can’t help but smile a little.

“Good as new,” he murmurs. It’s even true. The pain in his sigh as dulled to an ache, the rasping and gurgling in his chest easing and giving way to clear, if still slightly pained, breaths. It’s not perfect but he can fight again. That’s what matters, in the end.

Though if the blighted little shits can wait another fifteen minutes he’ll be fucking grateful.

Catheryn touches his cheek, her fingers feather light through the gaps in his helm. There’s a bit of blood on her forehead, high enough that it’s made a bit of her hair look matted in the filtered light.  “Be careful,” she says finally, letting her hand fall. “I’d be lost without you.”

Thom catches her by the hand as she moves away. He can’t feel her, not really. Not with the leather of her fingerless gloves and the metal and leather of his keeping their skin apart.  Magic jumps between them all the same, a small little jolt of electricity that races up his arm and shivers around the interior of his armor.

“No promises, my lady.”

The smile she gives him is full of understanding and more than a little sad. “Fair enough,” she murmurs and with one last squeeze of his hand she moves away, following the others in the jungle.

_Maker, please keep her safe_ , he prays as he watches her walk away and then, hefting his shield onto his arm, he follows.

Dead or living, his place is with her.

 

* * *

 

Their march through the jungle is steady and swift – swifter than he would have thought with the battle for the whole of Thedas raging in the tangled foliage around them. They skirt the fighting as best they can, pausing to engage only when it spills into their path or they happen to stumble upon a Red Templar outpost. They hear it often enough; the clash of metal and the screams – everything from battle hurled insults to the gurgle gasp of the dying – filling their ears.

The overgrown path that they have been – more or less – following since they left camp suddenly ends, spilling out of the jungle into a wide clearing. The most obvious feature of the clearing is not in the space at all but rather on the opposite end. What Thom can only assume must be the temple that they’re after rises opposite them, the walls faded and crumbled with time but still tall enough that he wouldn’t want to try and get over them without proper siege equipment. Which they wouldn’t need, thank the Maker. Even from across the clearing he could see the wide, foliage covered steps that led up to an entry point, no door in sight. The clearing itself was dotted with crumbling ruins, remnants of small buildings and statues, the ancient stone surrounded by wild, unkempt trees that were too equally spaced to be anything but deliberate.

Once upon a time it had probably been beautiful here. It still is, in its own way – a soft, poignant beauty that weighs heavy on his senses.

“For the Inquisition!”

The familiar cry snaps Thom from his quick observation of the tangled glade, his body moving, charging out into the open before the words fully register. It’s not the words that matter. It’s the voice. He’d know that voice anywhere. And he’s not the only one.

Ahead one of the red Templars circling the tight array of Inquisition soldiers explodes in a violent shower of purple edged lightning. Grunting, Thom ducks around the burning body, the corrupted warrior screaming high and sharp inside the electric cage, and plows into the huddle of bodies, sword and shield moving so fast they whistle as they cut through the air.

“Maker’s balls, I hadn’t thought the fight had moved this far north!” he yells as he pulls back, a lifeless body falling off the blade of his sword as he turns and puts his back to that of the man in the middle of the fray.

“It hasn’t!” Cullen shouts back over the clash of metal and sudden surge of magic. “But I wasn’t that far away so I thought I’d meet you here!”

“Catheryn’s going to kill you!” Thom tells him, smiling as he says it.

_No goodbyes_ , they said, but farewells can be uttered in more than words. _This_ – battle and blood and fury - seems a far more fitting send off than this morning’s misery charged desperation.

Catheryn’s face is a mixture of joy and mottled fury when she marches over a few minutes late. The remains of the Templars squelch and crunch beneath her boots. She’s… not happy. Pissed, is probably closer, the mottled fury and the undisguised pleasure on her face creating an interesting expression as she prowls across the corpses like they’re not even there and slams the flat of her hand against Cullen’s breast plate so hard he rings like a fucking bell.

“What. Are. You. Doing. Here.” She snarls, slamming at his armor again. “You’re supposed to be with the army. Leading them. Because _that’s your fucking job_!”

To his credit, Cullen doesn’t do much more than turn an interesting shade of pink.

“Well…”

“What were you _thinking_? What if Samson was here? What if _Corypheus_ was here? Would you have fought…”

“They were,” Cullen interrupts quietly. “Here, I mean. When we arrived.” He nods at the handful of scouts that had accompanied him. Catheryn stares, her mouth open, her fingers suddenly clutching at the ridges of his armor like she’s terrified that the Commander is going to disappear from in front of her.

And maybe, Thom thinks as he remembers a moonlight night in the Hinterlands, maybe she is.

“…not more than ten minutes ahead of you,” Cullen says, tipping his head to the temple’s entrance. “I figure you’d be here shortly and with Corypheus out of the way the least I could do was clear the way while I was waiting. It was either that or pace a hole in the jungle floor,” he adds with a slight, self-depreciating chuckle.

“Cullen…”

The Commander shakes his head, silencing her with a gentle touch to her shoulder. “I had to see you again. I… I needed that.” He lets out a shaking sigh and swallows hard enough that Thom can see his throat move behind his armor. “Be careful in there. He… Corypheus doesn’t just have the Templars with him. There are Wardens with him too.”

Beneath the weight of Cullen’s warning Thom staggers, clenching his hand until he can feel the grooves in the grip of his sword digging through the leather fingers of his gloves. _Wardens_ … of course the blighted fucker would still have some of them caught in his thrall. It had probably been too much to ask that the entire force be committed at Adamant.

Still, he’d hoped.

Catheryn stares at Cullen for a long moment before she jerks her head in acknowledgement. “I’ll be as careful as I can,” she promises lowly and they all know that that is as truthful as she can get while still putting on an optimistic front.

_She doesn’t expect to survive this_.

Cullen’s words ring in his head and Thom swallows, watching as his companions walk away.

“Keep her safe. Please.”

Thom grasps Cullen’s outstretched hand and grips it hard. “Until my dying breath,” he promises. He can see Catheryn over the Commander’s shoulder, picking her way up the crumbled ruin of the stairs. He needs to go to her. Needs to be with her. Needs to be before her.

“Thom?” Cullen’s voice, shaking, pulls him back and he pauses with one foot on the steps as he turns. “Don’t forget to watch your back.”

_Be careful_ , the words say. _Come back to me._

Thom raises his shield in silent salute and then follows Catheryn into the temple.

 

* * *

 

Cullen watches them leave, watches until all possible sight of them has vanished into darkness and ruin and tangled vine. “Maker watch over you,” he prays softly. “Blessed Andraste preserve you.”

_Do not leave me_ , he adds silently. _I could not stand it._

_Goodbye, beloved._


	4. Some Gods Just Wont Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thank you to everyone who has commented and/or left kudos! I've been complete and utter crap at replying to comments (Can I blame being super pregnant for that? Yes? Sure. Works for me. Probably even true.) but rest assured that I read them - usually more than once - and love each and every one of them.

The cry of the carrion crow is their first warning, the sight of the feathered scavengers the second. Twisting and drifting in circles, the sight of them against the sudden brightness of an open sky is disorientating after murky darkness of the long, enclosed entrance to the temple grounds. They stay in the tunnel, hugging the wall and letting the shadows hide them from whatever eyes wait beyond. That there is someone there is unmistakable. She can feel the strange magic in the air, something bright and shining warring with the thundering, jarring dissonance of corrupted lyrium. 

Magic held at the ready, Catheryn takes a slow, shaking breath before she tips her head slightly, beckoning without words. Stomach flat to the ground she edges out of the shadows and suppresses a momentary flare of surprise when it is Morrigan who follows first, skirting along the weathered stone like some gigantic spider. Behind her she can hear the subtle creak and groan of Thom’s armor as he shadows her. She doesn’t bother to try and track Solas and Bull’s movements. Both move with a silence that she has long since given up trying to master. Instead, she hunkers down behind a half broken stone ledge and peers down at the scene below.

Corypheus, with a man who could only be Samson standing at his side and a small contingent of Grey Wardens and Templars flanking them both.

And something else, _someone_ else.

It takes her a moment to realize that they are _elves_. The moment of confusion, she thinks, is excusable because the look absolutely nothing like the Dalish that she has encountered. They are both a tall and slender people but there the comparison ends. Where the Dalish are willowy and almost delicate these elves are sharp angles and broad shoulders with armor clad thighs that are as big around as her waist. If they are wolves than the Dalish are dogs, a tamer echo of what they once had been. It is no wonder that the corpses of Templars and wardens alike carpet the stone ruins, outnumbering the fallen elves at least four to one.

Those left standing hold the bridge with a steady wariness, bows and staffs held at the ready.

“ _Na melana sur, banal’len_!” the foremost of the elves hisses, and even from her perch high above them she catches the unmistakable twist of hatred on his face as his fingers flex against the surface of his staff. She doesn’t speak elven, let alone _ancient elven_ , but she doesn’t need to. Some things don’t need translating.

Samson chuckles and the deep, almost oily sound is enough to make the hair at the nape of her neck stand on end and her stomach clench as it skitters across her skin – the unending dissonance of the lyrium made truly vocal. “They still think to fight us, Master,” he muses and tosses aside the limp form held in his hands like so much garbage.

“These are but remnants,” Corypheus soothes and for a moment Catheryn has to shut her eyes against the wave of memories – real, not real, and what might have been – that swim before her gaze. “They will not keep us from the Well of Sorrows…”

Catheryn’s eyes fly open, her face snapping to the side just in time to catch the rapid fade of surprise from the other woman's face. “ _Well of Sorrows…?”_ she mouths suspiciously and Morrigan jerks her head almost desperately. But there’s a sharp consideration in the corner of her gaze that Catheryn does not trust.

Of course, if she is being honest, there is precious little – if anything – about the other woman that she trusts.

She wants to press, to question the Witch of the Wilds until there are no more secrets hiding behind those sharp yellow eyes but there’s no time for that. Not here, not now. Not with Corypheus no more than a few paces away and stalking towards the bridge with clear intent to take whatever waits on the other side.

The temple and its guardians have other ideas, however. With a terrible noise that cracks and leaps through the air like lightning the pillars on either side of the bridge come to life. A blue and white, almost electric, fire races up intricate twists of stone as the foremost guardian takes a step backwards, crossing some invisible threshold. It’s a barrier, of sorts, similar enough to be recognized but yet unlike anything she has ever seen or felt. If the Dalish and the city elves of her acquaintance are the shadow of what they had been then her magic is naught but an idea, a whisper at the edge of someone’s subconscious held up to the vast expanse of an endless library.

Judging by the sly little quirk that she can see pulling at the twisted, lyrium ruin of Corypheus’ face he’s not nearly as impressed as she is. “Be honored!” he booms, “Witness death at the hands of a new god!”

The magic in the pillars reacts the moment his corrupted flesh crosses that invisible threshold. Lashing out it catches hold of him, encasing him tightly in a bright blue fire hot enough that she can feel the heat from where she crouches. Catheryn ducks closer to the crumbled stone wall, squinting against the sudden flare of light.

_Maker, let him burn to a crisp,_ she prays silently.

Corypheus lunges out of the confluence of magic, striking like a viper. The guardian howls in pain, thrashing as the magister hoists in the air, shaking him like a terrier with a rat.  The screams provoke the magic, and the light and heat surge, crackling and building until the shredded flesh seems to melt from his bones. Around them the magic flares, growing until she can the pressure of it makes her teeth itch and her bones ache.

_Please let_ _him die. Just let him fucking die._

“Get down!”

Catheryn jumps a little at Solas’ hissed exclamation and at the strong, slender hand suddenly pressing between her shoulder blades. “What…?” she begins, but then she sees it.

“Maker’s balls,” Thom swears on her other side, clearly spotting the same thing.

She had likened the strange electric flames to a barrier moments before, her mind grasping for parameters to define it with. Apparently the hastily applied descriptor is more than apt. The edges of the inferno flicker, fault lines spreading from the genesis points and outward. “ _Fuck,_ ” she manages to mutter before her head hits the ground and around them the world explodes.

 It hits them like an avalanche, an unstoppable wave of broken magic so tangible that she can feel it through the combined strength of three barriers and the weight of Thom’s shield thrown over her head. Beside her he grunts, his larger frame taking the bulk of the force as he curls his arm over her. Lost in the maelstrom of magic his weight, and the icy-hot pressure of Solas’ hand against her back, are the only things she can feel. There’s dust in her mouth but she can’t feel the ground beneath her cheek or the rubble she remembers wrapping her fingers around. She can’t feel anything but the race and shudder of the broken magic as it flies around her.

When it finally dies away there is nothing but silence ringing her ears. Even the carrion crows have been silenced by the assault. She lies still, focusing on drawing back into herself, on the feel of the blood and grit against her lips and the warmth of the crumbled stone beneath her body. Over her head Thom’s shield is hot and heavy. She can feel it, sticky with blood and other things against the brush of her braid, and hear the slight scrape of the everite against the wood and metal of her staff. Solas exhales roughly against her ear, the elvish curse jarring against the silence of the world around her.

“Maker’s _fucking_ balls,” Thom finally groans as he rolls away, his shield falling to his side with a clang. 

From somewhere on her other side the Iron Bull lets out what can only be described as a whine followed by a loud grunt and what she assumes to be his axe slamming into the ground. “Stupid, fucking, dumbass elf _shit_!”

Catheryn groans and tilts her head to spit some of the dust out of her dry mouth. Fuck it, she’s tired of ending up with her face in the dirt. “Solas,” she grunts when she goes to move and realizes that she can’t. “Let me up.” For a moment she doesn’t think he heard her – or that he’ll listen – but then his hand retracts from the leathers spanning her back leaving the echo of his touch in a chill that travels through leather and chainmail and clothes until she can feel it like a brand against her flesh.

“I told you that there would be old elven magic in these woods…”Morrigan drawls haughtily as Catheryn drags herself to her hands and knees. The witch, she is petty enough to note, is still lying flat on her stomach, her mouth pressed in a tight, thin line. Serves the bitch right.

“Still not the elven magic that I’m worried about,” she mutters back. “Especially if it’s going to do our work for us.” She peers over the half broken wall to the carnage below and sighs. With no one left standing she can’t see anything useful from their half hidden vantage point. “C’mon. We need to go take a look.”

The mess of fresh rubble and ruined bodies makes as little sense from down below as it did from where they had lain and watched. The corpses of fallen wardens and corrupted Templars lay interspersed with the occasional elf, all of them covered in a fine dust and a flurry of fist sized gravel. In the epicenter of the explosion is the crumpled, singed body of the guardian who had faced off against Corypheus and a pile of ash and blackened bone that Catheryn assumes is Corypheus himself.

“Something is wrong,” she murmurs as she nudges the ashen, lyrium laced skull with her boot. The side of it crumbles inward, leaving it with a leering smile that makes her heart skip a beat before she has to look away. “Something about this is not right.”

“They didn’t die in the explosion,” Thom grunts as they stare down at the elven bodies littering the bridge. “They were gutted like animals. Poor bastards.” The wounds are fresh, so fresh that if they’d arrived even a minute earlier than they might have been able to save them – or at least some of them. Instead, their blood pools hot and steaming against the dusty stone, building until it gains enough mass to flow through the cracks and fault lines until the entire bridge around them is a web of crimson.

At the other end of the bridge the Templars and the Wardens, seemingly untouched by the magic that had destroyed a would-be god, pour through the doors that lead into the Temple. Unerringly, as if she had shouted his name and he had heard, Samson turns from where he stands at their backs and meets her gaze across the distance.

She doesn’t like it.

She doesn’t like the look on his face, the smirk on his lips as he nods his head and tips his sword in unspoken salute. She doesn’t like that he and his men are still standing when both the elven guardians – who, going by the body count, had been more than a fair match – and an ancient magister lay dead. She doesn’t like the sinking her gut, the feeling of eyes against the back of her head.

This is too easy.

This is wrong.

Behind her something cracks.

It’s loud enough to make her jump, to make her inhale sharply, her staff settling into her fingers as she spins around. Behind them a body rises from the rubble, his eyes still sightless and his head hanging at an unnatural angle.

“Maker…” Thom breathes as he subtly shifts, angling his body so that he stands between her and the corpse. Beyond the curve of his shield she can see the body thrash like stiff, disjointed puppet at the end of half broken strings, spewing forth a fountain of blackened blood out of wounds that should have stopped bleeding long ago.

Catheryn feels her breath catch in her throat, her entire mouth going dry with sudden terror as the dead warden collapses before them, tainted blood clearing to reveal someone else entirely. “ _No_ …”

“It cannot be!” Morrigan protests, but the unmistakable curvature, the lyrium tainted tendons and bones are more than answer enough.

“Across the bridge!” Catheryn barks as she stares at Corypheus emerging unwounded from the body of his follower like a blighted butterfly from its cocoon. “ _NOW!_ ”

Overhead a dragon screams, the echo its cry sweeping over them as they sprint across the rubble and corpses like they’re not even there. If she turns she can see it and not just feel the shadow of its presence darkening her back. Cursing, she directs a strike of lightning overhead but doesn’t dare to turn to see if it lands on target. If she turns she’ll see it and she’ll see _him_.

Corypheus. Magister. Would Be God. Immortal.

Maker, she is _fucked._

And not in the good way.

“Quickly, shut the doors!” Solas yells over the noise as he hangs back with her, the sweep of his magic crackling about her with such force that Catheryn can suddenly see her breath hanging before her face. Whatever he does, he does so quickly that she cannot track it, and above them the dragon roars in fury as he shoves her between the closing doors, slipping sideways to follow her in.

Catheryn stumbles on a piece of stone and Thom is there in an instant, the damp warmth of his glove wrapping around her arm and hauling her upright in time to see Solas slap his palm to the seam of the doors. His touch ignites a sudden flare of golden light, a barrier or ward of some form that races up the intricately carved surfaces and makes the whole blighted thing glow like the midday sun. On the other side of the door the dragon roars again, the force of landing enough to rattle the stones on the ground and shake limbs from the trees but the door still holds.

It holds, untouched, when flame licks around the base.

It holds and eventually they are left in silence.

 

* * *

 

“So…now what, Boss?” The Iron Bull’s voice is steady and carefully pitched to break through the hysteria that crowds her mind. She’s heard him use it before, usually on others. Skinner, usually, or Dalish. Sometimes Krem. Sometimes Dorian. Okay, more-than-sometimes Dorian. He hasn’t ever used it on her before but she recognizes it, even if it sounds like he’s speaking to her from underwater.

“Give her a fucking minute!” Thom snaps gruffly.

Catheryn inhales sharply, one hand braced on her knee and the other curling into a fist below where Thom’s hand is wrapped around her forearm as she forces herself to breathe deeply and methodically. She breathes in and out to the count of ten and then she does it again. And again. And once more for good measure.

_Fuck it._

“Blighted, fucking, _shit_!” she finally manages to gasp out, the flow of profanities clearing some of the stiffness out of her lungs so that she actually feels like the air is getting into her body. She grips her knee so hard she can feel it bruise through the leather, the sharp jab of pain enough to clear the ringing in her ears. “Shit,” Catheryn repeats hoarsely. “Shit. Shit. Shit. _SHIT._ ”

“Breathe, _falon_ ,” Solas murmurs above her, his hand pressing firmly on her back. “Breathe!”

At the soft order Catheryn sucks in a breath of air. The sharp humid warmth of it burns the inside of her petrified lungs but it makes the black spots leave her gaze. The Iron Bull is crouched in front of her, his axe balanced across his knees and one hand held out to catch her if – or when – she falls. His pale eye meets hers unblinkingly, leaving only the fullness of his lips pressed into a thin, determined line to reveal his thoughts.

_I’m with you_ , his words echo silently and the very corner of his lips quirk upwards as if he can tell exactly what she is thinking. Of course, he probably can. Fucking Ben-Hassarath.

“… Right,” she manages to get out after a moment and her voice only shakes a little bit. “So that happened.” _And you can freak the fuck out about it later_ , she continues to herself. “But right now Samson’s still in here and he’s still after something.” Another breath, so deep her ribs hurt. “That’s what we’re going to do. If we can’t kill the blighted bastard than we’re going to keep on doing what we’ve been doing.”

Bull smiles a little, “Fuck up his shit?” he asks and Catheryn nods.

“Fuck up his shit.”

With a hand that’s easily larger than her face he gently unwraps her fingers from their death grip on her knee, rubbing them to restore blood flow. “Sounds like a plan, Boss,” and she can’t help the little huff of laughter that escapes her throat as he closes his eye in a wink.

Between the two of them Thom and Bull help her to her feet, the Qunari letting go once she is upright so that she is left standing in Thom’s arms. The abrupt about face as he fiddles with something at his waist, his impressive bulk neatly putting itself between them and Morrigan’s keen eyes is entirely too convenient to be anything but deliberate.

“Sorry about that…” she mumbles, her apology cut off as Thom surges forward, hands clutching at her and drawing her upwards. His kiss is savage and bruising, so hard that she can feel his teeth press against her mouth. He tastes of salt and sweat and the dull metallic tang of dried blood – she doesn’t imagine that she tastes any better but that doesn’t stop her from clutching at the sharp ridges on the front of his armor and kissing him back. She kisses him like she wants to climb into his mouth and hide inside of him, safe beyond the wall of armor and the steady beat of his heart.

He kisses like he’ll let her.

She finally lets go of him when her chest starts burning again. Sucking in great gasps of air her head slumps forward onto the tacky surface of his armor. There will no doubt an unsightly amount of blood and ash and mud smeared across her face but she doesn’t care. Can’t care. It doesn’t matter. His beard tickles against the back of her head as he tucks her beneath his chin and holds her. “Alright?” he asks after a quiet moment.

“Yes.” It’s a lie and they both know it but he lets it slide. The truth will do them no favors here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> To the best of my determination (which, admittedly is probably half-hearted) _"Na melana sur, banal’len_ = Not this time, darkspawn/ blighted one. 
> 
> Also, I swear I don't hate Morrigan though it will probably seem that way in this and upcoming chapters. I love her in Origins but will admit that she usually rubs my Inquisitors the wrong way so it was (and is) too much fun to play with that...


	5. What Was Left Behind

Thom’s not an outwardly religious person. He doesn’t spend a lot of time in chantries and chapels. Rainier had gone entire decades without stepping foot in one or mouthing a single line of the chant. Blackwall had prayed more – prayed for forgiveness, prayed for hope, prayed for the end. Thom is shaping up to be somewhere in between. He doesn’t discard the idea of the Maker and after half a decade of praying it’s easy for the words to fall from his lips but it’s easier to put his faith in good men and women – people that he can see, that he can touch.

He has no such faith in the witch that followed them back from Halamshiral.  

Mostly the striking woman keeps to herself. In fact, outside of haunting a corner of the gardens, taking over one of the storerooms nearby, and insisting on attending a significant portion of the war table meetings Morrigan has remained remarkably low-key since her arrival at Skyhold. Maker, if nothing else he’s in shock that she and Madame de Fer haven’t gotten into a knockdown, drag out fight in the middle of the Great Hall. No, the _Witch of the Wilds_ keeps to herself, which is why over a year and a half later he still knows very little – if anything – about her.

And doesn’t trust her one fucking bit.

“…trange. Archdemons possess the same ability, and still the Grey Wardens are able to slay _them_ ,” the witch muses archly as they pick their way up the stairs. Time has left its mark on the once smooth stone, the once lush landscaping overwhelming the structure. The whole thing is doused in blood, or near enough. There’s enough bodies littering the path to the secondary set of doors above them that the elves’ blood drips down the steps in a steaming stream.

_Poor bastards_ , Thom thinks silently as he steps over one of the fallen warriors, their armor rent and smashed in a way he has come to recognize as distinctive damage done by someone with limbs partially overcome with lyrium. Not something these elves seem to have been prepared for despite the general aptitude they’ve shown in fighting the intruders thus far.

“Well, I’m currently fresh out of Grey Wardens. Besides, they locked Corypheus away. Maybe they knew he could do this but not how,” Catheryn replies tightly. Thom suppresses a wince. Not for the first time he regrets that he’s not actually a Grey Warden. He would be infinitely more useful to her with all of those secrets stuffed in his head.

Of course, he would also probably be dead or possessed.

Or worse, still alive and marching at Samson’s side instead of Catheryn’s.

“Fantastic,” Catheryn mutters, swearing as she stares up at the enormous doors blocking their way. “They’re locked.”

 “Surely, there is some way to open them.” Morrigan turns, her gaze sweeping past him to survey the rubble through which they have come. “Perhaps we will find some clue on the altar?” she suggests and nods her head at the large pieces of stone set upon a dais about halfway between the entrance and the base of the staircase.

Thom sighs and begins picking his way back down the stairs.

               

* * *

 

                _A darkspawn that not even the Grey Wardens could kill –_ it’s not a thought Catheryn wants to linger on but it won’t go away. The image of Corypheus emerging from the shell of someone else’s body is something that she will never forget. Like the Redcliffe-that-might-have-been it is forever seared upon the inside of her eyelids, just waiting for her to close her eyes. Catheryn sighs softly and ignores the concerned look on Thom’s face as she steps up on the dais, hoping to find some hint or key that will let her chase Samson into the temple. And if chasing the ex-Templar happens to get her away from Corypheus for the time being? Well, that’s just luck.

Beneath her feet the broken tiles spring to life, magic racing through them at her touch until the entire square upon which she stands hums with a blue light. “It appears that the temple’s magics are still strong,” Morrigan notes as she climbs up beside her. The witch sounds relieved, surprised even. Catheryn is not surprised. Magic has a way of enduring, a way of hanging on when it should be overwhelmed, when it should fade into dust and ruin. If it did not endure the chantry would not need to indoctrinate entire cultures against it, would not need to enslave men and women to control it and imprison those that have it.

“There appears to be some writing here,” she says instead, biting back all of the thoughts that fly through her head. None of them would be help. Nothing would help right now but to soldier on – to just do and not think, not too hard. Not yet. “Is it Elven? Can either of you decipher it?”

Morrigan is pushing her way closer to the stone pillar before the words are even out of her mouth, pushing aside the tumble of veins to stare at the weathered writing etched on its surface. Solas hangs back, leaning on his staff as he stands on the stairs behind her, but she doesn’t miss the way his keen eyes flicker over the writing as it is revealed.

“Does it say anything about this ‘ _Well of Sorrows’_? What it is? What it does?” Catheryn scowls up at the stone. “How to _get_ to the blighted thing?”

“ _Atish’all vir abelasan_.” The deep roll of Solas’ voice is almost haunting in its clarity and the delicate, musical edge it lends to the words is enough to make Catheryn turn her head back to him. He meets her gaze steadily but there’s a sorrow in them that is old and unending, a regret that has eaten a hole in his heart. “It means, ‘ _Enter the path to the Well of Sorrows_ ’,” he explains softly and she can’t stop herself from reaching back with a free hand and touching his arm. There’s something there, something in the careful blankness that he’s drawn over his face that she hates. If they were elsewhere, if they were back in Skyhold or even if they were alone she would have gone to him. She would have asked him what troubled him. She would have tried to fix it. But they aren’t. They are in the middle of a battle and in the middle of a desperate race. They are scrambling.

There’s not time for anything else.

Morrigan blinks rapidly, staring for a moment before she manages to press her lips together and turn back to the pillar. “Yes… that is…” she shakes her head. “There is something else – something about knowledge. Respectful or pure. _Shiven_. _Shivennen…_ ‘Tis all I can translate.” She shrugs and Catheryn meets her gaze, searching.

She doesn’t believe her. “That’s everything?” she asks, watching as the witch’s eyes flicker back to the stone. It’s not, of course. She doesn’t need to speak elven to know that. She doesn’t even need to see the pointed look that Bull gives her from where he lounges at the foot of the stairs, his eye seeing everything while appearing to look at nothing.

“That it mentions the Well is a good omen,” Morrigan says with a shrug.

 Fucking liar.

“I suppose knowing that it’s even here is better than nothing,” Catheryn mutters. “Though that still doesn’t tell us how to actually get to it.”

“I could always try bustin’ down the door,” Bull offers sardonically.

Morrigan protests instantly, her face significantly paler than it had been a moment ago. “I hardly think that will be necessary! Supplicants would have first paid obeisance _here_.” She motions almost desperately at the lit tile beneath their feet, its surface still gently humming. “Following their path may aid entry!”

It’s better than nothing, Catheryn supposes.

“Not much of a lock if all you have to do is step on it,” Bull points out after a few minutes of experimentation. His voice is still easy going but there’s a thread of caution there, something so small and faint that unless you knew him, knew his nuances, you wouldn’t catch it. _This is too easy, Boss_ is what he’s really saying.

And she can’t really disagree with him. But maybe it’s not supposed to be difficult. Not yet.

“Tis a ritual, not a barred door!” Morrigan snaps nastily, the strength of her glare completely lost on the giant Qunari. “There is more here than earthly treasure.”

The Iron Bull shrugs. “Still think it’s a fucking bad plan to stick powerful magic crap behind a door that can be opened by tap dancing your way across some pretty tiles.”

“…There!” Catheryn announces sharply, cutting off what was sure to be a scathing reply on Morrigan’s part. Beneath her feet the final tile blazes to life, a tumbler falling into place. Around them the magic pulses, squeezing like some great fist and even from all the way down here Catheryn can hear the sound of the door opening.

“Well done,” Solas murmurs as he falls into place beside her, “Let us see what awaits.”

She doesn’t need to see the grim determination on his face to know that he is looking forward to whatever lies behind that door about as much as she is.

 

* * *

 

She can feel his eyes on her the moment they enter the room, the weight of his gaze almost palpable as it drags over her armored skin and lingers on the staff carefully secured at her back. She can feel it as she turns slowly, letting her gaze drift over the dim, airy room. The temple is in better shape here – wherever _here_ is. Its walls and corners are worn and the floor covered in dust, but the tiles are whole beneath her feet and the ceilings arch high overhead, all the carving and millwork still carefully intact. It reminds her of Skyhold in its own way. It has that same feel to it – the thought that _maybe_ , just maybe, the very stones are alive beneath her feet.

 She can feel him watching while Morrigan stumbles, head twisting madly this way and that as she tries to take it all in. “Tis not what I expected,” the witch murmurs beside her. “What was this chamber used for…?”

Catheryn interrupts her. “We’re being watched,” she announces steadily as she slows to a halt in the middle of the hall, ignoring the weight of a dozen pairs of eyes that she can suddenly feel at her back.

“Boss…” Bull warns softly.

“I know,” Catheryn acknowledges softly as she raises her hand in wordless command. “But we’re not here for them.” She speaks quietly but firmly, pitching her voice loud enough that she knows the guardian standing in silent judgment above them can hear her. He dips his head in acknowledgement, the edge of his cowl slipping enough to reveal the sharp, angled features of his face.

“You… are unlike the other invaders.” He muses, clearly torn between something that might resemble respect and a great deal of confusion. “You stumble down our paths at the side of one of our own,” he adds carelessly and it is only a lifetime of practice in hiding the thoughts in her head that keep her from flinching as the words sink in. It is more than a decade of standing in front of suspicious Templars as they question her concerning everything from pilfered cookies to blood magic, her face carefully kept blank and her voice pitched to something soft and innocent, that keep her from looking to Solas.

Because Catheryn’s fucking sure he’s not talking about Morrigan.

“And you bear the mark of magic which is… familiar,” and there is something very much like fear in his voice, a heady hesitance as the mark on her palm flares to life in the dim light of the temple. For a moment the entire room seems to hold its breath as it sparks and rains shards of fade-green fire down on the floor.

_The orb Corypheus carried – the power he used against you – it is Elvhen._ Solas’ words, uttered so long ago, rise from the vaults of memory and whisper through her ears. At the time she’d wondered how he could possibly have known that and assumed that he had found something in his extensive fade wanderings. Now… well. Apparently he knew because he’s fucking _Elvhen_. Not Dalish. Not a city elf. Not some Maker-only-knows what apostate from some remote village. Ancient elvhen.

Catheryn exhales and waits beneath the guardian’s searching gaze.

“How…?” he finally breathes out. “How has this come to pass? What is your connection to those who first disturbed our slumber?”

In other words - _What the fuck is going on?_

Having thought that exact thing more than once she doesn’t begrudge him the moment.

“They are my enemies, as well as yours,” she tells him finally. “Corypheus is a madman who seeks to defile the world and remake to suit his purposes. He would be a god and crush us all beneath his heel. He must be stopped. Whatever his followers do here…” Catheryn grimaces, baring her teeth in an unpleasant snarl. “I won’t allow them to succeed.”

A collective sigh whispers around the edge of the room and without looking she knows that the archers behind her have eased their draw, standing down into something less than immediate violence. The elf above her catches her gaze and holds it, the tension easing down into something less fearful and something more focused, more understanding.

“I am called Abelas. We are sentinels, tasked with standing against those who trespass on sacred ground. We wake only to fight, to preserve this place. Our numbers diminish with each invasion.”

_It is our job to stop him here but we no longer have the numbers. Time and other foes have weakened us._

“I understand.”

Abelas nods and, turning, begins to pace back and forth. “I know what you seek. Like all who have come before, you wish to drink from the _vir’abelsan._ ”

_Everyone who has ever come to this places wishes to take that which we protect – how are you different?_

“He speaks of the Well!” Morrigan hisses, her eyes lighting with her excitement.

“It is not for _you_!” Abelas barks as he halts mid-pace to turn and glare at her. “It is not for _any_ of you!”

Morrigan’s lips peel back in a snarl. “Oh? And you have clearly done so much with it! Can you not talk some sense into him?” the witch asks, directing her comment to Solas. Clearly, despite the year and change spent in Skyhold, she has done nothing to learn of the people and companions that make up the power of the Inquisition. If she had she would not have ever thought to use Solas as a weapon. He is no one’s weapon but his own.

“And what shall I say?” Solas bites back, eyes flashing silver as he turns to confront the witch. “Shall I sway him from millennia of servitude by virtue of our shared blood?”

“We are not here to take _anything_ ,” Catheryn growls in warning, pinning Morrigan with a pointed glare. “We are here to stop Corypheus – to stop _Samson_. Nothing else.”

“But the Well…”

“We are not here for the _Well_!” Catheryn roars and lightning cracks along her armor until she almost seems to glow. Morrigan flinches beneath the ring of her voice, the sheer volume of it hanging in the air long after her lips are pressed together. “Might I remind you that you did not even know it existed this morning? You don’t even know what it fucking _is_!”

Maker, she is so tired of the other woman’s shit.

She is so tired of all of this.

Catheryn inhales unsteadily to the slow, careful count of ten and the lets it out, the rush of magic fizzling from where it races beneath her skin. _Control_ , she reminds herself silently. _Now is not the time to fucking lose it_. Thom is at her side when she turns, his gauntleted hand wrapping around hers in a brief, steadying grip. Another breath and she straightens slowly, willing her muscles to relax.

“It is a path, one walked only by those who toiled in Mythal’s favor,” Abelas voice’, smooth and deep like amber honey, washes over them and draws them back into the room. There’s something guarded on his face, something careful. “More than that you need not know,” he adds and Catheryn accepts it with an incline of her head.

“We did not come here to fight you, nor to steal from your Temple,” Catheryn reiterates softly, deliberately ignoring Morrigan bristling like an unhappy cat behind her.

Abelas stares at her for a long moment before he nods slowly. “I believe you,” he says simply. “Trespassers you are but you have followed the Rites of Petition. You have shown respect to Mythal… If these others are enemies of yours, we will aid you in destroying them. And,” he adds, lifting his gaze to sweep, sharp and all-seeing, across the companions arrayed behind her, “when this is done, you shall be permitted to depart… and never return.”

“Inquisitor!” Morrigan’s grip is harsh on her arm, harsh enough that she can feel the other woman’s nails digging into her through layers of clothing and armor. “Think carefully,” she hisses, stealing an unpleasant look up at the ancient elven warrior. “You need to stop Corypheus, yes, but you may also need the Well for your own.”

“There is no need to fight these sentinels!” Solas growls. His eyes flash again as he takes a step forward, crowding in close enough that Morrigan instinctively takes a step back.

“Easy now,” Thom murmurs, catching Solas’ arm. “Easy.” And surprisingly, Catheryn can feel him quiet behind her.

Fixing the witch with a pointed look she replies, “No, Morrigan. I am not you. I accept your offer,” she adds loudly.

The sound of the sentinels putting away their weapons is audible - the smooth practiced rasp of bows being slid home and arrows being returned to the quiver – and the relief in Abelas’ voice is so thick she can walk on it. “You will be guided to those you seek. As for the _vir’abelasan_ …” he closes his eyes and shakes his head before squaring his shoulders. “It shall not be despoiled. Even if I must destroy it myself.” There’s something that might almost be a smile on his face, something that is terrible in its grief, as he turns away.

“No!” Morrigan’s scream follows him deeper into the temple, her shriek bouncing off the walls with the same grating edge of pride’s laughter as she moves, her lithe limbs morphing into black, feathered wings as she leaps into the air.

_Fuck._

“ _MORRIGAN_ …!” Catheryn bellows after her, but it is no use. Both the witch and Abelas are gone, swallowed by the bowels of the temple proper. “I’m going to kill her,” Catheryn swears under her breath “I’m going to fucking _kill_ her!”

The Iron Bull grunts. “Can’t say I disagree with that, Boss. But we’ve got to catch her first.”

And, as always, the Qunari is right.

Fucking Ben Hassarath.

Catheryn scrubs a hand down the length of her face and sighs. “We’d better get going then. I think that is our guide.” She nods to elven mage waiting silently in the arch of a nearby doorway. The rest of the guardians have vanished like smoke in the wind, dissipating to where they might be of more use. And she must do the same.

“ _Falon?”_ Solas reaches out as she moves past him, his fingertips brushing against the leather of her armor. She pauses, hesitating just a moment to turn and look at him – at the careful blankness of his face and the steely silver-blue of his eyes glinting in the dim light like moonlight off of broken glass. In the three years that she’s known him she’s learned to see behind the mask that he wears for the world to see. Not everything, but glimmers and glimpses of the warrior and the scholar, the artist and the healer, the rebel and the advocate. Her teacher, companion, and friend. She’s always known that she doesn’t really know him. Only a fool would claim to truly know him.

_Still_ … Catheryn gives her head a little shake.

“Later, Solas,” she dismisses wearily as she turns away. “Let us survive this, _today_ , first and then we can talk.”

His fingers drop from her arm. “Of course, Inquisitor.”


	6. They All Burn Out One Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which personal head canon takes control of the scene and runs with it.  
> ...Sorry?

Something is wrong.

Maker, that’s been the fucking truth for longer than he wants to think about but this is more than an ancient darkspawn magister and a blighted hole in the veil that’s swallowing the sky. It’s more, even, than the sudden, irrefutable knowledge that said darkspawn magister can apparently not be killed. Burn the bastard to nothing but ash and apparently he just hops to another body. Maker, it doesn’t get much fucking worse than that.

Or, at least, that’s what Thom would have said if anybody had asked. And he’d have been wrong.

That in itself is a somewhat startling thought. He knows Catheryn. Not the Inquisitor that he fell madly in love with as Blackwall but the woman that exists underneath – the same, but different. He dares to think that he probably knows her better than anyone alive save for Cullen – and quite possibly Dorian, if he’s being honest with himself. Cole, with his ability to pluck thoughts from people’s heads doesn’t count. He knows the way she moves, the way she breathes, the way she tucks her hair behind her ears when she’s thinking or nervous, the way her fingers flex against her staff or against the stretch of her thigh when she’s trying to not lose her temper.

He knows her. Deeply. Intimately.

Which is how he knows that something is very, very wrong.

He’s watched this woman charge headlong into danger – often without appropriate back up, weapons, potions, or even a blighted plan. He’s watched her face down rifts, demons, dragons, and darkspawn. He’s seen her stand in the Fade, steady and sure and unfailing, against the swirl of nightmares and misery. He’s watched her coax the entire Orlesian nobility into eating out of her hand. He’s stood at her side and watched, awestruck, as she’s changed the face of the entire fucking world. She’s always appeared so sure, so unfailing determined to all but those who stand closest to her – and even then there is a thread of steel in her soul that cannot be broken.

Until now.

He doesn’t know what it is that’s bothering her and, Maker save them, there is not time and no privacy to ask, but something has changed. Something happened during the conversation with the sentinel that shook her, that bent her in a way that even Corypheus had not been able to.

Thom watches her stare at the enormous set of doors before them, the intricate, gilded carvings that flow across their surface faded with age but still beautiful. Beautiful enough that he can feel his fingers twitch, not for his sword or his shield but for the carefully oiled set of tools left on his workbench in Skyhold. What holds Catheryn’s attention, though, he doesn’t know but he’s seen her give less attention to a rampaging giant.

Behind them their guide, who has remained all but silent as they wound through the twisting maze of rooms, breaks into a soft flurry of agitated words.

“She says the men we seek are through these doors,” Solas translates tersely. Catheryn isn’t the only one left unsettled by something that has passed here today. There’s something steely and sharp to the apostate today that reminds Thom of a cornered, snarling dog – of an animal left with no escape and no other options but to reap destruction and turn the earth red with blood.

Thom’s not sure he wants to know what pushes a man so normally silent and deadly in his rage to the point of vicious madness.

Catheryn jerks at his voice, her face paling until the normal rosy cream of her skin is ashen and stretched across her skull as she stares at the elf, her gaze uncomprehending and focused on something else. Something that he can’t see or hear.

Maker.

“My lady?” He shifts subtly and the sharp edges of his shield press into his back as reaches out to grab her hand with his. He squeezes softly, gently, and after a moment’s hesitation lets out a small sigh of relief when she squeezes back.

She blinks and just like that color comes back to her face, the Inquisitor’s mask sliding seamlessly into place. He doesn’t like it but he liked the ashen shock even less.

Andraste save them.

“Thank you for your assistance. We will hold up our end of the agreement,” she promises firmly, extending her free hand towards the sentinel. For a moment the elf just stares, eyes a metallic gleam beneath her hood, and then she moves, slinging her staff across her back and grasping Catheryn’s offered hand in a single, fluid movement. The grip between them is brief, a bare tightening of fingers, before their hands are dropping back to their sides.

“ _Mythal enaste”_ the sentinel murmurs as she steps back, her fist snapping to heart in unmistakable salute.

“I promise,” Catheryn repeats quietly, squaring her shoulders.

She’s still holding onto his hand when they go through the door.

 

* * *

 

“…tough bastards – a day’s march, hours of fighting, and still as fierce as dragons!” Samson’s voice booms out as he steps over the bodies littering the floor.  Or at least he assumes that the man speaking is Samson. Thom can’t imagine that there are a lot of bastards out here running around in armor coated in red lyrium and looking pleased as fox locked in a hen house. He claps one of the corrupted Templars on the soldier as he passed them and Thom’s stomach twists unpleasantly at the sight.

It’s easy enough to close his eyes and see himself in Samson’s place, to see his soldiers, his _men_ gathered about him after a job well done, soaking up his smiles and praises. Men that he had cared for and loved in his own way. Men that he respected. Men that respected him. Men that he led into the Void and abandoned there.

 _You are not that man_ , he reminds himself as he follows Catheryn, slinking as quietly as he can through the weathered stone and overgrown landscaping. _Not anymore. That fucking bastard is dead and burned._

“… never knew what they were throwing away,” Corypheus’ general continues and the shiver it sends down Thom’s spine is enough to make him glad that the man’s back is to them now. He’s not sure he could manage seeing the look on the bastard’s face. He’s not sure he could look the ex-Templar in the eyes, see the corruption there, and still not wonder if Samson is the better man.

As if sensing the line of his thoughts Catheryn tightens her grip on his hand until he can feel the metal covering his knuckles biting through the soft leather of her gloves. The dark brown of her eyes are startling in the still too pale expanse of her face as she glances back at him but they’re as beautiful as always. She smiles a little, one side of her lips twitching upward as she releases his hand and reaches for her staff, sliding out of the brush and out towards the waiting Templars.

It’s one of the Templars, one still human enough to need armor and still human enough to use words, who spots them over Samson’s shoulder. “Samson, ser – watch out!”

Samson, though, is about as surprised as a Warden coming across a nest of darkspawn in the middle of a Blight.

He smiles mockingly as he steps forward, bowing with a flourish that would do half the Orlesian court proud. “Inquisitor, you’ve got a damn long reach,” he growls as he straightens and looks over them with bloodshot eyes. “You’ve hunted us half across Thedas. I should have known you’d follow us into this hole.” Behind him the Templars twitch on their feet. If they had been dogs they would be snarling and snapping, held in place only by the iron control of Samson’s silent command.

Catheryn tips her head slightly and stares at Samson. Stares at him until the mocking little smirk drops from his face. Stares at him until the threatening growl smooths out from around his lips, until his eyes narrow and he’s doing nothing but staring back.

“I spoke to Maddox,” she finally says and even from where he stands Thom can see the ex-Templar’s sudden intake of breath and watch as his already sickly skin pales beneath Catheryn’s soft words. “He took his own life rather than reveal your secrets. He died to protect your cause.”

In the middle of a brewing battlefield Samson closes his eyes.

“I told him not to…” he whispers raggedly, a completely different man than the mocking general. “I told him…” he shakes his head sharply and a hollow, broken laugh escapes his lips. “He died as one of us, then. As one of the faithful. There’s that, I suppose.”

At his side Catheryn twitches, her empty hand moving as if she wishes she could reach out and touch the man across from her. Touch him and wipe away the single tear trailing down his cheek.

Catheryn is kinder than he is.

“We gave him a proper funeral,” she continues gently. “We didn’t leave him there, in the ruins.”

“Thank you for that. He deserved better.”

Thom doesn’t have to fully understand whatever it is that is going on here to get that Corypheus’ general is not referring to something as simple as the Tranquil’s death. He can taste the other man’s regret, something sharp and sour that slides across his tongue, and see it written all over the bastard’s face.

_We all are sinners here._

“We don’t have to do this. _You_ don’t have to…”

Samson straightens abruptly, cutting off her words with a slash of his hand. “Corypheus chose me twice,” he tells her, a faint touch of wonder coloring the growl of his voice. “First as his general and now as the vessel for the Well of Sorrows. Do you know what’s inside the Well, Inquisitor?” After a beat of silence Catheryn shakes her head wordlessly. “ _Wisdom_ , Inquisitor. The kind of wisdom that can scour a world. I give it to Corypheus and he can walk into the Fade… _without_ your precious anchor.” He stares pointedly at her hand, at the faint green glow that escapes her skin. “So you see… yes, this is something I have to do.”

Catheryn shakes her head. “You know once Corypheus is that powerful you and your soldiers will just slow him down.”

“You dare say that? After the _years_ you’ve spent butchering my men? He could destroy the world with this power and he would still have killed less of us than you. You’re no match for Corypheus, Inquisitor. Not now. Not even if you drink from the Well yourself. You’ll never master its wisdom like he could.”

He steps forward, his armored feet thudding heavily against the stone floors. Thom blinks against the sudden red glare of the other man’s armor, the heavy metal plates bursting to life as the lyrium in them is activated. “Maker,” he mutters under his breath, surging forward to crowd in front of Catheryn.

“ _This_ is the strength the chantry tried to bind! But it’s a new world now. A new world with a new god!” The armor pulses and the air around Samson wavers, jerking with the strength of the lyrium’s push. Beside him Catheryn flinches as if struck and behind him he can hear Solas cursing. It’s like the shrine of Dumat all over again. The stench, the taste of it – Maker, it took him weeks to get the feeling of it off his skin.

Samson laughs.

“So, Inquisitor, how will this go?”

Catheryn gasps, doubling over as the lyrium pulses again. “Power… it’s all well and good,” she manages to whisper, fumbling for something in the belt at her side, “until it’s taken away.”

She throws out her hand towards Samson, a rune clutched tightly between her fingers and it flares to life.

“Maker’s balls,” Thom swears as a concussion slams through the air. It’s like standing too close to the strike of lightning and the roar of an angry dragon directly in your ear all at the same time. It even makes his fucking armor ring like a chantry bell until he can actually feel it vibrating against his skin.

Samson’s scream echoes through the temple - a visceral, primal cry of pain as he collapses in front of them. “What did you do?” he gasps as he twitches against the stone. “ _What did you do_? My armor… it’s _gone_ …” he gasps, inhaling sharply and pounding against ground with a gauntleted fist. “The lyrium – I _need_ it!” The desperation on the general’s face as he manages to stagger to his feet is nothing short of frightening.

  _All Templar’s are addicts_ , Cullen’s words ring in his head. _Once you’ve had that first philter the wanting is there. It never leaves you. Maker’s breath, it’s been years and still…_ He’d seen it, seen the sickness and the chills. He’d sat by Cullen’s side while the Commander thrashed in pain and helped him dismount and walk and even piss when he was too weak to do much more than open his eyes.

Samson’s hand is shaking so hard that for a moment Thom thinks he might actually drop his sword as he raises it to point at them. “Kill them,” he shouts. “ _Kill them all_!”

 

* * *

 

“Maker’s balls, the bastard is still breathing,” Thom mutters as he nudges at Samson’s body with his foot. Overhead the rift that Catheryn had opened in the middle of battle spits and snaps as it sputters out of existence. The man groans at his feet, head lolling to the side as he stares upwards, his eyes unfocussed and pupils dilated to different sizes in the pale expanse of his face. Thom’s just impressed that he’s still alive. He’s not sure he’d be in the same condition if he took a direct blow from Bull’s axe.

“We should bring him back to Skyhold for questioning,” Bull grunts as he leans on his axe, grimacing a little as he pops the cork out of a healing potion and chugs it. “Asshole is Corypheus’ general. He’ll know things.” Thom shivers at the speculative, unfriendly look in the Qunari’s eye. He’s a killer, and good at it. Any soldier worth his salt has to be but the Qunari is something else entirely. Especially for a cause he believes in. Let him and Leliana put their heads together and Samson quite possibly just became the unluckiest bastard in the whole of Thedas.

 Judging by the whimpering laughter that rolls out of Samson’s bleeding lips, he has come to a similar conclusion.

“Cullen will want to talk to him to,” Bull adds nonchalantly, his eye still fixed on the fallen general. Thom can’t stop the curl of unease that winds through his stomach at the other man’s words and his gaze is drawn back down to the man at his feet. He doesn’t know everything that has passed between the two men but he knows enough.  He has spent many sleepless nights listening to fumbling stories and quiet worries over too many half-touched drinks. Some of them good: a glittering, treasured memory held close in the dark. Most are not, though - too many hateful words and hurtful actions on the sides of both men.

Thom does not have to wonder too hard what would happen if they were to be in the same room again. None of it would be good, of that he is fucking sure. Not now. Not after everything. Not after what Samson has done for Corypheus. Not after what they have done to each other.

“The people would no doubt appreciate a pubic trial,” he suggests instead, trying to push the sudden bloom of unease down. The irony of such a suggestion, from him of all people, is not lost.

 Bull snorts, “Only if there is a juicy sentencing at the end.”

Catheryn slowly shakes her head. “We can’t risk it,” she announces quietly. “We still have to deal with Morrigan. We can’t take him with us and we can’t leave him – Corypheus is still out there somewhere.” Bull gives her an appraising look but something eases inside of Thom, uncurling from around his lungs so that he finally feels like his chest plate hasn’t been bashed in.

“…doesn’t matter,” Samson spits wearily as his eyes flutter shut. “I died a long time ago.”

“Yes,” Catheryn murmurs as she shoulders her staff. “I suppose you did, didn’t you?”

It’s such an odd thing to say that Thom finds himself staring at her for several moments before a slight clearing of her throat draws attention to the hand she’s holding out to him. It takes another moment before he grasps why. Thom tightens his grip on his sword. “My lady…”

“Don’t make me try and use Bull’s axe,” she interrupts, scowling.

Thom shuts his eyes. She does her own killing. It’s one of the things he’s admired about her since the beginning. Long before she was officially in charge she led from the front, fought in the thick of battle, and was never afraid to get her hands dirty. Power hasn’t changed her. She still does and she still isn’t.

He hands her his sword.

“I found the cure to Tranquility,” she says rather suddenly, the tip of the sword hovering over one of the cracks in his armor.

“Fucking load of good that does me,” Samson snaps, but his eyes are open and staring now, bloodshot and unfocussed into the general vicinity of her face.

“I know. Still thought you might like to know.”

Samson inhales sharply and the noise itself is wet. “Thank you,” he whispers and with a grim expression Catheryn drives the sword downward, straight through the broken armor and into the man’s heart.

More than the soft sounds of death and the scent of blood it is the single, crystalline tear sitting on the sharp jut of Samson’s cheek that Thom will remember until the day he dies.


	7. Rock, Meet Hard Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... sorry this is a day late. I spent the entirety of yesterday completely convinced it was Thursday. Pregnancy Brain is real folks.

The force of their spells slamming into her barrier from opposing sides is enough to take Catheryn to her knees. The jar of the electric strike leaves her teeth itchy and the frigid wave that rolls over makes her bones ache so deeply that for a moment she fears they might actually shatter, barrier or no. Distantly she can hear the sounds of her companions racing up the steps behind her, the grate of their armor and the panicked cries of various names and endearments echoing in her ears like the rushing sound of water.

“ _Stop!_ ” she snarls, shoving her hands out in opposing directions. The fling of her right extends the perimeters of her barrier until it wraps Abelas in a woven flicker of blue light. On the other side her left flares in a sudden brilliance of green fire as she reaches through the anchor and _pulls_. Morrigan freezes, halfway to her feet, teeth bared in a feral snarl as the eerie green light reflects off the small knife held in her hand. “Stop,” she repeats more firmly, lips pressing into a tight line as she levels the weight of her glare on the witch. “You make another move, Morrigan, and I will toss your ass into the Fade so fast your head will spin.”

For a moment she thinks the witch might test her and her fingers twitch, feeling for the slubs and thin spaces in the veil where she might punch through and let the chaos beyond suck Morrigan through. It would hurt to open another rift so soon but fuck it if it wouldn’t be worth it just to be rid of the meddling bitch.

Morrigan’s eyes flicker from the glow of Catheryn’s hand to her face and she curses, sharply, but lets the knife fall from her hand with a clatter that echoes too loud on the stone floor. “Fool,” she spits and Catheryn thinks the witch is speaking of her until the sharp yellow of her gaze locks on something over her shoulder. Abelas. “You’d let your people’s legacy rot in the shadows!”

Catheryn finds an edge and yanks, pulling a thin thread through. Not much, not enough to open a rift, but enough to send Morrigan stumbling, her own magic suddenly flaring in a desperate barrier as the fade presses around her like fist. “ _Back. Off.”_ She bites out as she manages to get to her feet. The creak of Thom’s armor is close and reassuring but he doesn’t reach out to help her. No doubt his attention is focused elsewhere though whether it’s on Abelas or Morrigan she’s not sure yet.

She trusts him though, trusts him to keep either one of them from killing her.

The cool touch of Solas’ barrier layering against her own is a balm against the frantic hammering of her heart.

Morrigan stares at her, utter incomprehension written across her face. “The well clearly offers _power_ , Inquisitor,” she finally stresses. Her words are slow and careful, like one might speak to a small, frightened child. “If that power can be turned against Corypheus can you afford _not_ to use it?”

It’s an important question.

The rustle of Thom’s armor and the sharp intake of Bull’s breath says that she’s not the only one who knows it.

The well glimmers and shines in the periphery of her gaze, silver and smooth like a sheet of steel. Waiting.

_Can_ she afford to walk away from such power? Can she do such a thing when she faces an immortal monster who can rebirth himself in any of the blighted creatures and beings that crawl across Thedas’ surface and burrow and scamper underneath? Can she turn away from such a boon when the whole of the world – the whole of their very existence – depends on her toppling a would-be god? Can she refuse when accepting might mean that she survives? That _Thom_ and _Cullen_ survive?

She can still feel the phantom of their touch against her skin.

She would let the world burn for them. To know that they were safe. To know that she could sleep in their arms every night and not have to worry that they would have to rise and fight and die in the morning.

She would let the world burn for Dorian, so the smug little shit could laugh like he means it. She would let it burn for Bull, for his jokes and his steadfastness. She would let it burn so that they might find their happily ever after together, just like in some child’s story.

She would let it burn for Varric and his wit and Cassandra and her faith.

She would let it burn for Leliana and Josephhine and Krem and the rest of the Chargers.

She would let it burn for Cole and for Sera and, Maker help her, she’d even let it burn for Vivienne.

She would let it burn for Solas. For a man that is both a stranger and one of her dearest friends. She would let it burn if it would take the sorrow from his voice and the regret out of his eyes.

She would let it burn and crumble and turn into nothing but ash if it meant they all lived – happily, healthily, and safely. She would do a great many things to ensure that outcome. Almost anything, really.

But not this.

She’ll not make herself into a mirror of Corypheus. She is not a god. She does not want to be. She doesn’t even want to be Inquisitor. She’ll not murder and pillage and _take_.

“Do you even know what you ask?”

 Abelas’ ragged question is enough to make her turn away from the witch and look to the man who has moved up at her side. Behind her she can hear the clink of armor as her companions draw closer and Catheryn trusts them to keep Morrigan from planting a knife – because the witch has at least one more, no doubt – in her back as she lets the power of the anchor die down until it nothing more than a throbbing ache across the center of her palm. The sentinel takes a step forward and the Well ripples in response to his approach.

“As each servant of Mythal reached the end of their years, they would pass their knowledge on… through this.” He motions at the Well, shoulders slumping beneath an invisible weight and the pale gold of his eyes gleam from beneath the shadows of his hood. “All that we were. All that we knew. It would be lost forever.”

“This can’t be easy, holding on to what is left,” she says gently. But even as they fall from her tongue the words sound hollow in her ears and taste like ashes in her mouth. There’s a glimmer of understanding in his gaze, though – a comprehension of what she is trying and failing to put into words.

“You cannot imagine. Each time we awaken it slips further from our grasp.”

And really, what can she say to that? What words and useless prattle can she spout in the face of such awning grief and loss? A type of loss that she cannot even begin to comprehend. Redcliffe gave her some idea, some point of reference but… no, even with the nightmare of Redcliffe forever repeating on the back of her eyelids she cannot even begin to grasp what Abelas and the sentinels have gone through.

“There are other places, friend.” Solas interrupts gently. “Other _duties_. Your people yet linger.”

Abelas jumps and whirls, startled by the sound of the other man’s voice. His eyes are a little wild as he stares at the unassuming apostate – because that is exactly the mask Solas is wearing. She hasn’t seen it out in such force since the early days of Haven when he spent his time proving his usefulness while trying to appear harmless. It worked in Haven. It’s not working now. She’s not sure what it is but there’s something about her companion that has the sentinel on edge.

“Elvhen such as _you_?”

Solas responds steadily, “Yes. Such as I.”

The two stare at each other for a moment before Abelas gives an unsteady shake of his head and takes a step backwards towards the Well. The sentinel takes a deep, shaking breath as he returns his focus to the gentle lapping of the mirrored surface.  “You have shown respect to Mythal,” he finally murmurs, “and there is a righteousness in you I cannot deny. Is that your desire?” he asks as he catches her gaze with a puzzled, inquiring look. “To partake of the _vir’abelasan_ as best you can, to fight your enemy?”

Behind them Morrigan inhales sharply but Catheryn shakes her head.

“No,” she says firmly. “I will not take what doesn’t belong to me. Not without your permission.”

“One does not obtain permission. One obtains the right.”

Catheryn tips her head. “I understand.” And she even thinks she might. There are some things that cannot be given. Abelas takes one last breath and turns away. He squares his shoulders and slowly, deliberately, takes first one step and then another and then another, leaving the Well of Sorrows without a protector.

“The _vir’abelasan_ may be too much for a mortal to comprehend,” he warns suddenly. “Brave it if you must, but know you this: you shall be bound forever to the will of Mythal.”

Morrigan’s scoff is loud enough to make her jump. “Bound? To a goddess who no longer exists, if she ever did?”

Fuck, she’d practically forgotten that the witch was there. _Slipping, Inquisitor,_ she growls inwardly, _you’re slipping._ Ten minutes ago she’d been ready to drop the other woman ass deep in demons and leave her there. To have forgotten her presence is a terrible oversight, even with the others no doubt watching her with all the focus of a starving dragon.

Catheryn fights the urge to simply blast the disrespectful witch out of existence and instead grinds her teeth at the disdain in the other woman’s voice.

Abelas, it seems, is fighting a similar urge.

“ _Bound_ ,” he snaps back, eyes flashing as he glares over her shoulder, “as we are bound. The choice is yours.”

“Do you think it possible that Mythal might still exist?” Catheryn quietly asks.

Abelas shrugs. “Anything is possible.” But there is a sadness there that cannot be defined – a grief that has been around longer than Catheryn can imagine. Time has dulled it, shined the roughened edges until it gleams like polished jewels when it catches the light.

“Elven legend states that Mythal was tricked by Fen’Harel and banished to the Beyond,” Morrigan mutters. “I highly doubt she is going to show up _now_.”

“ _Elven_ legend is _wrong_. The Dread Wolf had nothing to do with her murder!” The sentinel’s voice cracks over them like a whip and Catheryn catches sight of the witch recoiling from it like a physical blow.

“ _Murder_?” she repeats, flabbergasted, and her face turns ashen. “I said nothing of…”

Abelas slashes at the air with his hand. It trembles a little as he clenches it into a fist at his side, the ancient leather of his armor creaking beneath the strain. “She was _slain_ ,” he repeats viciously, “if a god truly can be. Betrayed by those who destroyed this temple. Yet the _vir’abelasan_ remains,” he adds, eyes flickering back to the shining pool. “As do we. But now our duty ends. Perhaps only _uthenera_ awaits us. The blissful sleep of eternity,” he clarifies at the look she can feel cross her face, “Never to awaken.”

Death without dying. Suicide for the immortal.

Understandable, Maker help her, and still such a waste.

“You could come with us,” she offers quietly. “Join the Inquisition. Join our fight against Corypheus.”

She knows his answer, though. Knows it before he shakes his head, those pale yellow eyes fixed on hers. “I thank you for your offer but…our time is long since finished. We killed ourselves long ago.”

This time nothing stops Abelas as he turns away – no last words of warning, no exclamation from the witch watching with the predatory focus of a hawk. Nothing. She half expects the Well itself to rise up in protest of its abandonment but it doesn’t. Nothing does. Nothing except for Solas.

He reaches out as the Sentinel moves past him, hand barely stopping just over the rise of the other man’s arm. The words he speaks are gentle and Elvhen – beyond Catheryn’s comprehension. Abelas eyes him warily for a moment and then nods.

“His name,” Solas murmurs once the sentinel is gone. “Abelas means sorrow. I said _… I hope he finds a new name_.”

Catheryn stares down the stairs, her eyes managing to catch a the final gleam of the sentinel’s armor among the ruin and greenery as he joins a handful of his companions at the bottom of the steps. They stand still for a moment, heads bowed together, and then disappear – vanishing into their temple like the ghosts they have become.

“I hope so too,” she says and she means it.

 

* * *

 

“I did not expect the well to feel so hungry.”

Thom tightens his grip on his sword and levels an unfriendly stare at the witch. He’s not especially keen to put himself between the mage and the Well but Maker help him, he’ll do it. Not because Catheryn clearly doesn’t want Morrigan touching it – though that’s reason enough – but because she’s staring after it like a drunk, days deep in withdrawals, might look after a freshly opened cask. Worse, there’s a thread in her voice, a longing that echoes too closely the pained, pleading whimpers he has heard leave Cullen’s lips in the darkest corners of the night, when there’s no one but he and Catheryn left to hear them.

He doesn’t like it. Not one blighted bit.

Catheryn doesn’t either. “Don’t get any closer, Morrigan,” she growls as she rejoins them at the edge of the Well.

The look the witch gives her isn’t any friendlier than the one on Catheryn’s face. “Why not?” she asks. “I am more than prepared to the price the Well demands. I am also the best suited to use its knowledge. In your service, even,” she adds after a hearty pause and her mouth twitches in an unmistakable grimace.

_Only if it gives you what you want_ , he thinks as he stares at her back, watching for the ripple of muscles beneath the pale stretch of the witch’s skin that will tell him that she’s going for a weapon.

“Only so long as it aligns with your own ends,” Solas observes and Thom barely manages to stop the snort that bubbles in his chest from prancing out of his mouth.

“And what would you know about my _ends,_ elf?” Morrigan sneers, rounding on him.

Solas is not impressed. “You are a glutton, drooling at the sight of a feast. You cannot be trusted!”

Thom’s eyes flicker to the Iron Bull who has come around to the witch’s other side and he wonders if she’s noticed - if she’s noticed that she’s surrounded, trapped between metal and magic with no way out.

“I cannot be _trusted_? Of those present I alone have the training to make use of this!” she gestures angrily at the Well. “Let me drink!”

Catheryn doesn’t bother hiding her laughter. “ _’You alone’?_ ” she mimics, mockingly. “You’re not the only mage here, Morrigan. Fuck it, you’re not even Elvhen. And neither am I.”

It takes him a moment, the words moving through his brain like molasses on a cold day, but he gets there eventually. About half a blighted second before the witch.

_Maker’s balls_ , he swears as Morrigan’s eyes widen comically in her face as they jerk back to the apostate standing stiffly just beyond Catheryn’s shoulder.

“What about you, Solas?” Catheryn asks quietly.

“ _No_ ,” his refusal is imminent, harsh and abrupt, his face paling as a hand raises itself unconsciously, as if to ward off a blow. “Please, _falon_ , do not ask me again.”

And that alone scares him more than anything he has seen or heard today, save for the image of Corypheus rising out of another man’s corpse. He’s seen Solas afraid before. He’s seen him frantic with fear as he knelt with his hands buried in the open cavity of Catheryn’s chest, trying to keep everything inside her body and working long enough to put it back together. He’s seen him pale and quiet with it as he carried Catheryn’s limp body in from the cold of her balcony and bade everyone but Cullen and Thom to leave. He’s seen brief flashes of terror in the mage’s eyes on a dozen occasions, but he’s never seen it like this. Fear and shame and despair so thick he could walk on it and knotted so tightly that even Thom, who is well versed in all three, cannot even begin to say where one leaves off and the others begin.

Catheryn gives him a long, searching look but nods.

“Then, I hate to say it, but Abelas’ plan to destroy the well might be the best idea.”

Maker’s balls.

Thom shifts, his sword tip rising as Morrigan trembles beside Catheryn. It’s a fucking miracle that the witch doesn’t snap and tear the other woman to shreds. “And what happens when Corypheus comes for you again? When he finds you… _again_?” the witch hisses. “He is _immortal_. The power – the _wisdom_ of the Well may include a way to destroy him!”

At the witch’s words he can’t help but let his gaze slide a little until he catches a glimpse of the silvery sheen stretched beyond the arguing women. It seems incomprehensible that something that looks like liquid silver could contain the answer to wiping Corypheus out of existence. Of course, a fucking hole in the sky, the Grey Wardens turning into an army of demons, an immortal, blighted ancient magister, and a woman like Catheryn wanting absolutely anything to do with a miserable shit like him all seemed equally incomprehensible – and yet, here they are.

The Maker's got a fucking miserable sense of humor.

Maker help him the longer she talks the longer a part of him agrees with Morrigan. He doesn’t want that power in the witch’s hands but if it keeps Catheryn safe? If it topples Corypheus? If it means that he and Catheryn and Cullen all get to disappear into the quiet background of history alive and well…

Andraste save him, he’s not a saint. He’s not Rainier anymore but he’s not Blackwall either. He’s not that selfless. Not anymore.

“Do you not get it, Morrigan?” Catheryn’s voice pierces the air suddenly, sharp enough bite. “That is not just _knowledge_ and _wisdom_ there. It’s not just power that you can swoop up and down like a vial of lyrium. Can you not feel it?” she asks more quietly. “It is their _will_. It is all that is left of them – a compulsion, a _geas_ …”

Morrigan inhales sharply. “That would…” she whispers, turning to stare.

“Bound,” Catheryn repeats tiredly. “Bound as they are bound.”

“I… I cannot fault your reasoning,” Morrigan begins and Thom’s surprised she doesn’t choke to death on words that sound suspiciously like a veiled attempt at apology. “But I do not fear bearing that price. Bound to a dead goddess? Bound to the ghost of someone that might never have actually existed? ‘Tis folly to turn down what is offered in the face of fanciful stories.”

Catheryn clearly disagrees but instead of arguing she turns. “Thoughts?” she asks and it takes him a moment to realize that she’s asking them. Asking _him._

“My lady…” Thom shakes his head helplessly. “I can’t lose you,” he confesses, uncaring who hears him. It’s not like what they’re doing is a secret to three of the four other people here. “Not again. And I can’t – I can’t follow you into that fucking thing. Maker save me, let the witch have it.”

It’s the cowardly answer. The selfish answer. And for the first time in his life it doesn’t taste like ashes in his mouth.

“I don’t know, Boss. Messin’ with elf shit when you’ve already got demon shit strapped to your hand?” The Iron Bull’s tone is light but the look on his face is anything but.

“The witch is right only about one thing,” Solas interjects when it becomes obvious that that is all they are getting out of the Iron Bull. “We must take the power that lies within the Well. Whatever else, we cannot leave it for Corypheus.” As one the five of them all look at the Well and then to the enormous mirror propped against the wall on the other side of the pool. The actual existence of the Eluvian had been a surprise to Thom. He’d written it off some time ago as something that Morrigan had made up – a target that they could understand and accept – in order to get at what she really wanted.

Turns out, she hadn’t been.

And now there are two things they have to keep away from Corypheus.

“Oh… fuck it. I’ll do it. If anyone has to use the Well, it might as well be me.”

And before anyone can stop her, before her words even fucking register, Catheryn steps off the edge of the pool and plunges through the mirrored surface.

“ _Catheryn!_ ”

“No!” the Iron Bull and Solas are on him in an instant, hauling him back from the edge. “Do not touch it!” Solas barks in his ear. “You cannot touch it!”

Catheryn spins slowly in the water-that-is-not-water, the liquid lapping around her in smooth, lazy spirals. It clings to her form but the armor is not wet when it pulls away.

“Inquisitor... _what have you done?_ ”

Catheryn doesn’t spare the witch a glance and instead looks up at him, the deep brown her eyes nearly black against the silvers and grays of the Well. “What is needed,” she says gently and with a stifled sob Thom sags in the arms of his companions and watches, helpless, as she drinks.

 

* * *

 

It’s cold as it slides down her throat - cold and nearly as thick as honey but not nearly so sweet. She can feel it sitting like water against oil in her stomach. It’s a strange feeling but not unpleasant.

For a moment nothing happens.

And then _everything_ happens.

The pain is so sudden and so complex that she can’t pin point it. She can’t tell where it comes from or what it’s trying to do. It’s just _there_ and exploding in a thousand different directions. Much like the anchor before her first attempt to seal the breach, except the sensation is not confined to the palm of one hand.

With a cry that sears her throat raw she collapses into the well, dimly aware of the sounds of struggle and Thom roaring her name as her head slips beneath the silver waves.

The entire world goes black.

 

* * *

 

It’s the voices that draw her back into awareness, whispers that flit and float around the edges of her mind and brush up against her skin like cats come begging for attention or a bit of whatever is on her plate. Catheryn shakes her head, trying to clear the fog as she staggers to her feet but it just grows thicker – wisps and whirls of smoke and white in the inky blackness. There’s nothing here. Nothing black and fog and the voices whispering inside of her head.

Words, so many words, words that are muffled and that she doesn’t understand.

She presses her hands to her eyes and tries to focus. They’re _there_ , if only she can…

“Why am I here?” she whispers, her lips moving soundlessly as catches the feeling of the words.

_Intruder._

_Why._

 “There is a magister – Corypheus – who wishes to rip the veil open. To tear down and remake the world. He must be stopped,” she answers steadily as she turns in a slow circle, focusing on all of the atrocities that Corypheus has committed. Remembering all the dead, all the dying, all the broken and the lost. For once she doesn’t stop the nightmares from rising behind her eyes. Instead she lets them and she holds them there, praying that the voices can see them. Can see all of the things she will never be able to put into words. “ _I_ must stop him. If you can help me… If you can help me take whatever price you wish.”

The whispers around her swell violently until they press at her in a cacophony that rivals the jar of red lyrium.

“Anything,” Catheryn whispers, sagging beneath the weight. “I swear.”

The blackness takes her again.

 

* * *

 

“… _thryn!_ ”

“Stop fighting me, you crazy asshole! You can’t…”

“…Let him go. There’s nothing left to harm him now.”

Metal against metal.

Metal against stone.

Scraping, clawing, running.

“Catheryn? My lady?” hands at her face, gentle as the rough armor smooths down the side of her neck. Hands she’d know anywhere. A voice she’d know anywhere. Rough and deep, like an avalanche contained in a barrel and roughened, shredded or smoked. The soft rasp of hair against her cheek, the heat and stick of dirty armor against her side. “Oh, Maker,” he prays into her hair. “Just let her keep breathing.”

Breathing.

She inhales sharply and it hurts. The air is too hot, too moist and it leaves the tastes of sweat and blood heavy on her tongue. “…Thom?” she murmurs. The arms around her tighten convulsively and she can feel the press of his lips, hot and heavy like a brand, against the top of her head.

“I’m here, love,” he reassures raggedly. “I’m right here.”

_Worry._

_Love._

_Sorrow._

_Safety._

_Betrayal._

_Comfort._

_Home._

It takes her a moment to realize that the words and sensations flitting through her head aren’t her own. Or rather they _are_ but they’re… not. It’s like something is sifting through every thought, every emotion in her head and repeating it back to her.

The whispers are still with her.

Except, instead of buffering against her like waves upon a beach they’re trapped in a swirl of fog and foreign words beneath the tenuous prison of her skin. If she focuses she can actually feel them, much like her magic, an entity that is of her but _not_ her moving through her veins and buzzing through her bones.

“…alright?”

Catheryn blinks and both Solas and Iron Bull swim into focus over the top of Thom’s head. “Are you alright?” Solas asks softly and the Iron Bull grunts.

“She’s alive but she looks like shit,” the qunari mutters. “Was it worth it, Boss?”

She glares a little and manages to get to her feet with Thom’s help. “That remains to be seen,” she replies, “and I feel…fine.” It’s not quite true but it’s not _not_ true either so it’ll work for now. The look on Solas’ face is skeptical but he lets the comment lie, his lips pressed into a thin pale line as he continues to watch her.

There’s no way to miss the absolute fury straining at the edges of his features. She’s sure she’d be able to see them even if she were blind.

“Solas…”

_Intruder._

_Despoiler._

_…_

**_Run._ **

“Get out,” she whispers, head snapping around. “We have to get out.”

“… _shit_ ,” Bull swears behind her and Thom utters something that might actually be a prayer beneath the profanity.

“Morrigan?”

Across the great expanse of the inner Temple Corypheus stands facing them, his eyes locked on hers, arms raised infury. “NO!” he screams and levitates – _fucking levitates_ – into the air.

“The Well should be the key to the Eluvian,” the witch replies almost frantically. “You’re the key now, Inquisitor. As long as you’re through before he gets here then…”

… then the bastard can’t follow.

_Brilliant._

“Go!” Catheryn shouts. For a moment she can’t feel her right hand, can’t feel it as it waves in the direction of the mirror. At her gesture the Eluvian flares to life in a brilliant flash of light. “ _Go_!” she orders, waving her companions through.

Morrigan wastes no time and is across the empty well and through the mirror before Catheryn has time to blink.

Solas and the Iron Bull are through next, disappearing in a flash of blue.

“My lady…” Thom begins and Catheryn grabs him by the arm.

“Go!” she tells him. “I can’t go through until… _fuck_.”

She casts the barrier at the very last moment. She feels it go up. She _sees_ the fucking thing slamming into place around them as Corypheus reaches them.

It hurts. Maker it hurts. The pressure alone is enough to make her clutch at her head and scream as she shoves against Thom’s breastplate with her elbow. He falls and she stumbles after him, her last sight of the Temple nothing more than a whirl of smoke and fog surrounding the glowing red form of Corypheus and the vines of red lyrium reaching for the mirror.

It takes her a moment to realize that the Eluvian above her is blank, once again nothing more than an enormous sheet of glass.

It takes her a moment to realize that the stones beneath her back are worn, but smooth and solid.

It takes her a moment to realize that it’s the sweeping lines of Skyhold arching over her head and not the intricate, broken art of the Temple.

It takes her a moment to realize that she’s drenched in blood and that the screaming hasn’t stopped.


	8. If I Only Could, I'd Make a Deal With God

Catheryn scrambles upright, her fingers slipping on the blood spreading in a slow steady pool across the floor. There is so much of it. Not just on the floor but on her hands and armor. It’s splashed across the upper portion of her thigh and beginning to seep up the leather of her overcoat. There’s enough of it that she can feel it through the layers of leather and metal – not wet, not yet, but warm and sticky.

It’s not her. Even with all the adrenaline, magic, and Maker knows what else pumping through her veins she’d notice if she’d lost that much blood. Void, she’d be flat on her back and cold. So it’s not her. Besides, the screaming is too low. So it’s not Morrigan either.

The thoughts flash through her mind in the second it takes to clamber up on her knees and twist around, eyes darting to the source of the cries.

“ _Maker_ ,” she prays and her heart stops in her chest. “ _No_. No, no, no, no, no…! _Solas_!” she screams as she scrambles forward, heedless of the blood between them. The elf is already dropping to his knees on the other side of the fallen warrior, hands hovering just over the dull sheen of his armor and the shard of red lyrium sticking out of Thom’s thigh.

  _Shard_ , she calls it, but it’s a fucking spear. As thick as her wrist, with nearly a foot of length sticking out from where it has pierced his armor, punching through the thick plate of everite like it didn’t even exist before burying itself Andraste-only-knows how deep in his flesh. Catheryn’s not sure what terrifies her more – the thick, steady gush of his blood beating out around the wound and flowing out from underneath him or the fact that he has red lyrium buried in his body. Raw, vibrant red lyrium which screams and sings with more force than entire cathedral full of tone deaf choristers. Red lyrium that will leech into his blood and latch onto his bones until his eyes glow red and his skin is traced in shining crimson lace before he inevitably dies.

Catheryn swallows back a sob.

The red lyrium is definitely more terrifying.

She reaches for it without thought. She has to get it out. She has to get it out _now_. Nothing that she’s done, nothing that she’s accomplished will matter if she loses him to the nightmare that lurks behind her eyes. It won’t matter that she stopped a demon army and saved Celene. It won’t matter that she closed the Breach and every single other blighted rift she’s ever come across. None of it will matter if he falls, if he _dies_ , beneath the screeching red song in an awful reflection of the future-that-might-have-been.

_NO!_

The cry from beneath her flesh is so loud inside her head that it literally stuns her, her joints and limbs locking into immobility even as Solas knocks at her hands with one of his. “No!” he echoes, the fear in his voice audible.

 “We have to get it out of him,” Catheryn snaps back. “We can’t leave it there!”

“We can’t,” Solas agrees as he flexes his hands over the wound. The tide of blood leaving Thom slows at the gesture but honestly, she’s not sure if that’s because the elf has done something or because there’s nothing left to flow out. Thom is all but silent now. The keen of his is pain quieting with every gush of his blood across the floor, his breathing slow and erratic and his normal tawny skin almost translucent against the darkness of his hair. “But you _cant_ touch it and no of us _should…”_

 “Dagna,” Catheryn breathes suddenly. “She’ll have specialized tools. From when she was working with Maddox’s things.”

 “On it!” the Iron Bull snaps, already sprinting out the door before the words have had a chance to fall all the way off her tongue.

 Fucking Ben Hassarath.

 If he gets Dagna here in time she’ll kiss him senseless.

“Do you have a regeneration potion?” Solas asks tersely. “It’s a risk but if he doesn’t get more blood in him soon…”

Catheryn’s fingers scramble for the clasp on the little box built into her belt. Once she manages to open it and pull the potion out her hands are shaking so badly that she nearly drops the small glass vial a handful of times while she raises it to her mouth and yanks the cork out with her teeth. “Why is it a risk?” she asks as she tips the potion into Thom’s mouth. At least half of it dribbles out. “Don’t die,” she pleads softly as she leans over him. “Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die.”

 _You promised you’d never leave me_ , she adds silently. _Not again_.

Thom’s throat moves, barely, and the second half goes down.

Solas grunts. “Do you really want more blood to carry the lyrium through his body? More flesh to close around it, more sinew to hold it tight?”

Catheryn feels every ounce of blood leave her face and she closes her eyes and prays.

Maybe this time someone will hear her.

 

* * *

 

 It is an eternity before The Iron Bull returns. Or at least it feels that way.

The Eluvian room – little more than a closet with vaulted ceilings – is quiet save for the occasional elvish curse and the rasping, erratic flow of Thom’s breath. She feeds him two more regeneration potions, the last of her supply, in that time and when the last of hers are gone she’s startled to find another, already uncorked, held in front of her face.

“We disagree about much, Inquisitor,” Morrigan mutters tightly as she presses the potion into her hand. “But I am not as heartless as you might believe.”

 By the time Bull returns there’s enough blood to fill three men pooled on the floor and soaking her leathers.

“Shit,” the Qunari breathes and there’s a thump as he, presumably, sets Dagna down on the ground.

“Wow. That is a _lot_ of blood. How is there so much blood? Oh, I see! You’ve been feeding him regeneration potions at a calculated rate to hold his current blood supply steady. Not enough to heal him but enough to keep him from bleeding to death while you…”

“Dagna.”

“Right. Wait for me to come get the lyrium out. That is a _really_ big piece of lyrium. Much larger than what they let me experiment with when I was making that rune for Samson’s armor. Oh! How did that work? Did you…?”

“ _Dagna_.”

The dwarf crouches down next to Catheryn, heedless of the blood that squelches loudly beneath her. “ _That_ is a really big piece of lyrium,” she observes again, sounding more than a little awe struck. “And the amount of force required to punch through his armor like it was nothing…”

“ _Arcanist_!” the dwarf’s head whips upright at Solas’ shout and she swallows.

“Uh. Right. Just let me get…” her voice trails off hesitantly beneath the force of Solas’ glare. From her bag she takes a very thick, very rune covered pair of gloves that cover her arms up past the elbow and a series of tools that Catheryn recognizes as Maddox’s – or new ones, rather, that have been fashioned after those she found in Dumat. These are newer, less worn, and bear Dagna’s mark stamped into the metal. “Hold him still,” Dagna orders firmly. “I don’t want it to break.”

Catheryn’s hands find Thom’s, cold and limp, and clutch them. _Please_ , she begs silently as she watches. _Please._

The lyrium screams as Dagna pulls, a soundless howl that ricochets around the inside of her skull. The grate of it against the jagged edges of his armor is almost as loud, a screeching keen that echoes through the vaulted space. Beneath her touch Thom’s fingers jerk feebly and she clutches all the tighter, her heart pounding painfully in her chest.

 _P_ _lease_.

The moment the lyrium is out Solas slams his hand, and the torn bit of cloth that she recognizes after several long moments of thought as part of his undershirt, down on the wound. “Another potion,” he growls tightly, “and, _Falon_ , you’ll need to keep his heart going.” Catheryn meets his gaze.

“I…”

“Small, controlled electrical shocks delivered directly to his heart,” Solas speaks over her. “I’m going to let him bleed out. You need to keep his heart beating after the blood is gone so that I can freeze it between beats. Then we can move him.”

Catheryn blinks.

“But can’t we… I have lyrium, if you need it,” she manages to get out. The words are heavy and thick on her tongue – slow to form and slow to move.

“Magic feeds on lyrium,” Solas grunts apologetically, his face so carefully blank. She hates that look, that face. It is a politician’s face. A careful face.  “If he is not to become a nightmare that we face on the battlefield there must be as little magic in his veins as possible.”

It is only the too cold touch of Thom’s hand in her own that keeps Catheryn from collapsing across his body, a strangled sob escaping her lips.

 _He can’t. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t,_ she chants desperately. _He can’t die. Maker, he can’t. Not now. I can’t. I can’t I can’t…_

“Catheryn,” the soft touch of her name, so rarely used, makes her eyes fly open. “Remember,” Solas murmurs as he meets her eyes. “Short, controlled bursts. Only to his heart.”

Tears streaming down her cheeks she loosens one hand from her grip on Thom’s hand and lays it flat over the armor still covering her chest. It would be better if the metal was gone, easier if the breastplate had been stripped off him first but they don’t have time for that. They don’t have time for anything but desperation.

“I love you,” she whispers over his ear and with a frantic prayer repeating with every beat of her heart in her chest she tips the final potion between his lips.

The next few minutes are the longest of her life. Longer, even, that the terrible moments that followed DJ’s birth when a quiet, desperate corner of her heart begged and begged and begged for her daughter to take a breath. Just one. She would have given anything for one single beat of her child’s heart, for one single breath to fill her child’s lungs. She would have traded the world to look down and see her daughter’s eyes stare up at her with a newborn’s sleepy, confused awareness.

Each second is an age, each minute a millennium as she sits and tries to ignore the feel of Thom’s blood gushing unhindered out onto the floor. Everything around her fades, vanishes beneath the focus she extends to the valiant muscle struggling inside the cage of his ribs as she feeds it slow, measured strikes of lightning – the tight coil of energy jumpstarting the organ every time begins to falter.

Her world is nothing but lightning and blood and the mind numbing fear that crawls through her veins and sinks into her bones until she chokes on it.

“Now!” Solas’ hand is shoving hers away and pressing down against the everite plate, frost and ice moving out from his fingers so fast that she can hear the metal warp and crackle beneath the onslaught.

Beneath Thom's skin she feels it as his heart dies, frozen between one moment and the next.

 

* * *

 

 The next bit passes in a blur.

She doesn’t remember getting to her feet but she remembers running behind Bull as he carries Thom through the Great Hall. She doesn’t remember who went and fetched Leliana but she remembers the small army of scouts scattering before the Qunari like halla before a wolf pack, clearing their way. She doesn’t remember mounting the stairs her quarters but she remembers the clatter and the whirlwind of papers that fill the air as she sweeps maps, correspondence, gifts, and sundry other meaningless items off the scarred expanse of her desk.

She remembers the clang of Thom’s armor hitting the ground as Solas and Bull strip it from him. Remembers the comforting pressure as Adan grips her shoulder briefly as he passes behind her, commandeering a side table for the makings of his trade. She recognizes other healers pouring into the room – a handful of men and women who she knows but can’t remember names for as they lay out surgical tools beside the still man on the desk.

She remembers the way Solas’ fingers are steady as they hold the gaping leg wound open, a nasty hole that consumes nearly a third of Thom’s thigh, while Dagna digs through it with something that resembles an oversized pair of tweezers.

She remembers stroking Thom’s hair away from his face as Solas and one of healers – the surgeon that had been left behind when they emptied Skyhold for the Arbor Wilds – cut away scarlet veined flesh, which Dagna scoops up and deposits in the rune covered bag she’d carried with her.

She remembers the smell of liquor as it’s poured into the hole, the pitter-patter of it as it drips off the desk and hits the rug and stone beneath the table.

She remembers Solas’ voice as he speaks. Remembers the neat, tidy stitches that he strings through Thom’s flesh, sewing it closed.

She remembers that the white of the bandage against Thom’s skin isn’t nearly as stark as it should be.

She remembers Adan gently pushing a thin, glass tube to the back of Thom’s mouth and pouring a potion – some variation on a regeneration potion she suspects, though it doesn't smell as strongly of elfroot as she might expect.

She remembers the feel of Thom’s chest beneath the palm of her hand, cool and still. Far to still. Still even as it begins to warm beneath the gentle weight of Solas’ magic.

She remembers the moment. The moment when the suspension fails and his heart plummets towards stillness. Remembers the jolt of lightning leaving her finger. Remembers the faint burn mark it leaves on his chest.

She’ll never forget the sudden, weak jump of his pulse beneath her fingertips and the way his eyes flutter open momentarily beneath the second shock, the pale blue-green of his them locking on her face as he slides back into darkness.

 

* * *

 

“How is he?”

Catheryn looks up from where her hands are clasped loosely around one of Thom’s and blinks. It takes her longer than she’d like to admit to register Leliana’s soft words and even longer for them to make sense in the exhaustion and fear addled landscape of her mind. She glances at the man lying on her – _their_ – bed and exhales slowly.

Laid amongst the sea of down filled pillows, with a blanket of soft, fuzzy wool pulled across his chest with another draped over the lower expanse of his legs to keep him warm, Thom is pale. The normal tan of his skin an odd sort of yellowish gray against the bright dyes and earthy furs of the bedding and all but white against the dark strands of his hair. His chest rises and falls subtly beneath the blanket – gentle, slow breaths. Shallow, but steady.

It’s more than she thought she’d ever see again.

“Stable, for now,” Catheryn finally answers as she rubs her thumb over the back of his hand. “We won’t know for a couple of days if we managed to keep the red lyrium from seeding itself.” Solas hopes that by keeping his blood flowing and then letting him bleed out completely followed by cutting away the obviously contaminated flesh that Thom stands a chance. It’s a chance smaller than she can possibly comprehend, but a chance all the same. She’s too tired to explain it to her Spymaster, though.

“I took the opportunity to send word to army of your survival and presence here in Skyhold,” Leliana continues when it becomes obvious that no other words on the matter are forthcoming.

Catheryn lets out a shaky breath. Good. That’s good.

“I suppose you want to hear about it,” she murmurs after several deep breaths.

“It can wait,” Leliana assures her, “The Iron Bull was most thorough in his report.” A small smile tugs at the corner of Catheryn’s mouth because _of course_ he was. Fucking Ben Hassarath. Honestly, she’s not quite sure why Leliana even bothers talking to the rest of them because odds are good that Bull’s got everything important down plus notes on what that fourth red Templar had for dinner three weeks ago. “I was going to suggest that you might want to send a note to the Commander yourself. I am sure your words will go a great deal further than mine.”

Catheryn rubs at her face with one hand and blinks, her eyes gritty and burning as she looks up at Leliana. “That’s… actually a good idea,” she murmurs. “I just…” She looks back to where Thom lies and Leliana smiles, touching her shoulder gently.

“Go. I will sit with him until you return.”

 

* * *

 

 

Most of the nobility, merchants, and sundry other People of Importance that like to hang around Skyhold have vanished, returning to their manses and their businesses when the army – and most of the publically important people – marched, which means that there is a distinct lack of people to point and stare as Catheryn makes her way across the Great Hall. Still, she has no doubt that Josie will throw a fit when she returns to hear the rumors of the Inquisitor marching through the keep proper in nothing but an undershirt and some leggings, both of which are filthy and stained with dirt and a multitude of bodily fluids. Because even though there are only a handful of people gathered at one of the far tables, talking far too loudly and flinging cards around like fucking flower petals she knows there will be rumors. Lots and lots of rumors.

She’s just too blighted exhausted to care.

Unable to stop the sigh that falls from her lips, Catheryn hangs on to the scaffolding as the door shuts with a _thud_ behind her. The sudden cool silence of the rotunda is so welcome that she sags against the wall, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. _Later_ , she promises herself as she knocks the back of her head against the mural covered wall. _You can fall apart later_. Preferably after she’s knocked back a potion of her own, a cup or three of something a lot stronger than wine, and is huddled eyeball deep in steaming, _clean_ bathwater with all of… _everything_ … washed away. Her mind skitters away from what that _everything_ entails. She’s more than reasonably sure that she’s going to need a new set of armor. There’s too much blood logged in the set she wore today – too much blood and lyrium and corruption and death.

If the Undercroft doesn’t burn it than she will.

Catheryn takes a moment and breathes. Breathes to the soft rustle of someone reading near the balcony in the library above. Breathes in the cold and the stillness. Breathes until the racing of her heart has slowed to something that doesn’t make her feel like she is going to be sick the moment that she moves. Scrubbing a hand over her face she opens her eyes and catches sight of Solas leaning over his desk.

If anything he looks worse than she does.

He’s missing the hardened leather overcoat and the tunic that he’d been wearing underneath it. He’d stripped out of both items and tossed them aside at some point to keep dirt and blood from dripping into Thom’s wounds. Other than that he’s still dressed for battle, the supple pale leather of his leggings a dozen shades of crimson and the light mail shirt gleaming dully in the soft light. The soft cotton shirt underneath the mail is as dirty as her tunic, though rolled up to his elbows to expose forearms that are shocking in their cleanliness. He’d scrubbed them meticulously before sticking them into Thom’s freshly cut flesh and then again when he was done.

If she squints she can still see the smudges of red staining the area around his fingernails as he clutches at the edges of his desk. Carefully, of course, so that none of the blood and grime gets on the neatly stacked piles of his research into half a dozen different topics. He knows she’s there. She can see it in the faint tension between his shoulders, the pride that will not let him collapse into his chair like he must desperately wish to.  But they are companions, friends even, and he trusts her enough to keep his head slumped over his chest and his back to her.

“We need to talk.”

Catheryn pauses beside him, not looking as she trails her fingers along the ancient edges of his desk. “Yes,” she says simply and she tilts her head to stare up past the library to soft clinking of cages rattling against each other as they sway above them. “I need to send a note to Cullen. And Leliana is sitting with Thom.” The _so I cannot be gone long_ goes unspoken but she knows that he hears it all the same.

“Of course. I…”Solas sighs. “My quarters?”

“I’ll be there in a moment,” Catheryn assures wearily.

Solas doesn’t say anything but she can feel his eyes between her shoulder blades as she crosses the rotunda and begins to the climb the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author disclaimer: is not a doctor, nurse, or any other sort of medical professional. Does not play one on TV or the internet. Is literally just making this up as I go along.
> 
> \---  
> And I'm going to go ahead and apologize in advance. Next week there may or may not be a chapter up on Monday. Partially because there's something I need to tweak/re-write and partly because the little human currently residing in my uterus has decided ... (after 10 solid weeks of hanging out in the appropriate _heads down_ position)... to flip breech so I'm currently warding off all sorts of lovely anxiety attacks and running around like a chicken with my head cut off to see if we (midwife and I) can't get baby to flip. I, unfortunately, am both phobic of hospitals and live in a state that seems to think that I should lose all right to make medical decisions for myself if my baby's head is facing the wrong way. But... this is neither the time or place for that soapbox and shitload of feelings.  
>  So.  
> I will do my best to get a chapter up next Monday but if not, apologies. It will get there! Promise!


	9. Just Begun to Fight

Solas’ room is little more than a closet with a solitary, thin window overlooking the stable yard tucked into a wayward corner of the keep on the same level as his rotunda. Truth be told, Catheryn’s not sure it is actually meant to be anything more than a closet but all of her attempts to dislodge the elven apostate to nicer quarters had been politely – and then not so politely – refused. Though, with as little time as he spends in his room she supposes its size doesn’t really matter. In the entire time they’ve inhabited Skyhold she’s been here exactly thrice.

It hasn’t changed at all since the last time.

There’s barely enough room for both of them to stand between the narrow bed he has shoved up against one wall and the bookcase and small wardrobe that are against the other but they manage. He’s changed in the moments she’s spent up in the rookery.  Clean breeches and a soft, worn cotton shirt have replaced the armor, leaving him strangely vulnerable looking. Fuck it, who is she to call him vulnerable looking? If Jim’s reaction upstairs is anything to go by she looks about as together as a half drowned baby fennec.

Wordlessly, Solas motions to the single chair pulled up next to the window. “Please,” he murmurs when she hesitates. Catheryn sits and after some hesitation of his own Solas drops to the edge of his bed. “You drank from the Well,” he finally utters, an edge of steel in his voice that matches the silver flashing in his eyes.

Catheryn meets his gaze calmly. “And you’re one of the ancient Elvhen.” She lets out another huff. In another life it might have been laughter. “That’s how you knew about Skyhold. That it existed. Where to find it. It’s a remnant of another time.” There’s no hesitation in her voice. The carvings and the detail work at the temple of Mythal had been more intricate – more fitting for a complex of buildings that were a place of worship, a tribute and offering to the goddess honored therein – but beneath all the trappings the bones and the basic styles of architecture are the same. Just as all Ferelden buildings are distinctly Ferelden, and all Orlesian buildings possess something entirely Orlesian – even when they’re bastardizing the latest trends out of Tevinter and Antiva – so is Skyhold uniquely Elvhen. “Just like Corypheus’ orb – the one that gave me this.” She twists her and just enough that the anchor casts an eerie green glow across the space between them.

“Yes.” His shoulders slump beneath the weight of the word. “Why did you do it?” he asks, slumping further. “I warned you not to. And you…!” his voice dissolves into a wordless growl as his hands tighten into fist, the soft white veining of frost lacing over his skin and racing up his arms.

“Solas…”

“You gave yourself into the service of an ancient elvhen god!” he snarls and flinches away from her outstretched hand. “Do you know what you have done? You have sold yourself to _Mythal_!”

“You don’t even believe in the elven gods!” she snaps back. Because if there is one thing that traveling with him through the fucking Dales and all over the Emerald Graves has taught her is exactly what the man sitting across from her thinks about the Dalish and their gods.

“Not as _gods_ , no!” he shouts. “But they existed! The Evanuris… they were generals. Mages. Beings who may have once been spirits or even something else. It doesn’t matter. They were immensely powerful and not to be trifled with. You may not bear the marks…” Catheryn shivers beneath the cold, ghosting touch of his fingertips across her face. “But you are Mythal’s creature now. Everything you do, whether you know it or not, will be for _her_. You have given up part of yourself.”

Catheryn blinks beneath the sudden onslaught of information and the questions that come swarming to the surface as it filters through the fog that crowds her. She blinks again. “… marks?” she squeaks because of all the questions swirling through her head that’s the one that manages to trip off her tongue first.

“The _vallaslin._ ”

“Those are the…” she motions at her face. “That the Dalish wear,” she adds in clarification.

“In a manner of speaking,” he spits. “In Arlathan they were slave markings – your ownership written across your face in magic and blood for the entire world to see. You may not carry them on your face, _fenor_ , but they are written in your blood. Forever.”

 _Slave markings_.

The delicate whorl of ink that she’d always found beautiful on the faces of the Dalish – and even on the sentinels faces today – is suddenly much less pretty.

“Yeah… well…” Catheryn shakes her head. “What else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t destroy it. I could tell just by looking at it, by listening to it… I didn’t have enough power to pull that shit off. Not even with this.” She flexes her hand thoughtfully. She’d certainly considered it as she stood there staring at the Well. Run through and discarded half a dozen ideas while Morrigan ranted and argued. None of them would have worked. Of that she is sure. She sighs and swears softly. “My other options were to leave it for Corypeus or give it to Morrigan.” Her face twists into a grimace. “Fucking blighted villain with delusions of grandeur who wants to destroy the world,” she mutters, holding up one hand, “Fucking crazy witch who _might_ help us save the world and then do who-the-void-knows afterwards.” She holds up the other and waffles the two up and down like sides of a scale. “I did what I thought was best.”

Solas crumples.

“I know. I know. It is better you have it than Corypheus but…” he shakes his head. “Looking beyond Corypheus it might have been better to let the witch have it.”

Catheryn can’t stop the hollow laughter that bubbles up behind her ribs and breaks out of her mouth in something that is more than a little hysterical. “ _Beyond_ Corypheus…?” she manages to wheeze out. “I can’t think of _beyond_ Corypheus. Especially not after today.” She swallows roughly, willing the sudden rise of bile back down her throat as she clenches her hands together at the memory of Corypheus emerging from the Grey Warden like some sort of blighted butterfly. “Fuck. I can’t even _dream_ of after Corypheus. As far I’m concerned there is no _beyond_ , no _after_.”

Likely literally, all things considered.

 _A crazy magister that can’t be killed_.

Shit.

Solas’s hands are warm against her own, gently prying them apart.  He’s speaking, words she can hear but can’t understand, the deep, calm cadence of his voice drifting at her as if from underwater. “… _dis_! Breathe!” The sudden drop in temperature is more shocking than a slap to the face and so sudden that her skin burns beneath the ice that races up her arms.

The sudden inrush of air to her lungs is just as cold and the shock of it is enough to spur her own magic into existence. Lightning crackles in the air between them, jumping and hoping from her skin until the entire room feels fuzzy.  “I… _Solas_ …”

“Breathe, _Falon_.”

It’s a simple enough request, truly, though it doesn’t quite feel like it as she forces herself to inhale. Fuck it, but this really shouldn’t be this hard. And she really needs to stop doing this. What would the rest of the Inquistion… Void, what would the rest of _Thedas_ think if they could see her now?

Maker, for once in her life she’s glad that Cole isn’t hovering somewhere nearby. She’s not sure she could take hearing her own thoughts outside of her head. Or Solas’. Or anyone else’s, for that matter. She’s not even sure she can handle hearing them _inside_ of her head. Not anymore. Not…

“ _Catheryn_ …”

She inhales shakily and hunches over their hands. “Right here,” she manages to murmur. “I’ll be fine I just…” There’s no good way to end that sentence, no way to finish it that isn’t a lie. Catheryn shuts her eyes and inhales shakily. _Just breathe_ , she reminds herself as she lets it out slowly, _all you have to do right now is breathe. That’s it. Just breathe and everything will be okay._

Perhaps if she repeats it enough she might even believe it – if only for a moment.

“ _Ir abelas, falon_ ,” Solas murmurs after a while and squeezes her hands in futile comfort. The magic around them has faded, easing down until dissipates like smoke on the wind. It’s easier to breathe with it gone but at the same time she feels strangely naked without it pressing against her skin. “You are bound enough by the duties and expectations that the world thrusts on you. I had hoped... I had hoped you would manage to escape this without being utterly consumed.”

“Too late for that, my ancient friend,” she huffs quietly. “I was consumed the moment I stumbled across Corypheus with the Divine. I just didn’t know it until I stood underneath a giant hole in the sky and realized it was me or everyone else.”

Solas’ hands convulse around her own, tightening to the point of pain. “Catheryn…”

She forces her eyes open and looks up at him. “Do you know why I took the Well? I almost gave it to Morrigan. Almost.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. Stupid, probably, but I couldn’t give up that much power.”

Not because she wants it. Andraste’s flaming tits, she has more power than she knows what to do with. More power than she’s ever wanted. If she could give it away without the world falling to pieces she’d do it in a heartbeat. But the truth of the matter is she doesn’t trust the world to not fall apart. The power, most of it has been thrust on her, but she’s taken a fair amount of it too. Taken it from those who used it with abuse, who could not be trusted. She doesn’t trust the world to not misuse it again – even less than she trusts herself with it.          

A fact she’s quick to point out as she watches something dark and unfriendly move across Solas’ face.

“I took it because I trust those around me – trust _you_ – more than I trust myself,” she explains gently. “Maybe the Maker, the Creators, the Old Gods, and whatever other powers lurk in the dark will be kind to me and the Well will hold the key to destroying Corypheus. Maybe they won’t. I’ll still have to fight him regardless. There is no other end to this for me. However many roads I take, however many paths I follow there’s a blighted magister waiting for me at the end of each and every one. And I… I don’t think I can beat him and come out the other side of it. Especially now.” Catheryn shrugs with one shoulder and squeezes Solas’ hand to keep him from uttering the defiant, supportive phrase no doubt intending to march out of his half opened mouth. The truth is usually far from comforting.

“I took the Well to make sure that any – _any_ – information gleaned from it was unfiltered by the perceptions and goals of others,” she continues. “I took it because if I die then the Well dies with me and its power is forever placed beyond the reach of those who might twist it and defile it.”

Solas clenches his jaw, his lips forming a thin, bloodless line on his face. “And if you _don’t_ die? What will you do with that power then?”

Catheryn smiles sadly. “Change the world – hopefully for the good – and trust that my companions will keep me from turning into a monster. I trust you,” she says again. “I trust you and the others to keep me from turning into Corypheus. To keep me from being a Celene or a Briala or an Alexius. I trust you to stop me before I lose myself, before I turn into a tyrant.”

“Thom and Cullen would never…” Solas manages after several breathless moments, his voice little more than a husky squeak between them.

“No. They wouldn’t,” she agrees. They would no more be able to kill her than she had been able to let them die or enslave them with lyrium’s leash. “Varric and Dorian probably wouldn’t either. But you would. And so would Cole and the Iron Bull. Cassandra would cry buckets but she’d get it done.” Catheryn snorts, “Void, slap a bow on my head and Vivienne would probably think it was her fucking birthday.”

“She’d probably criticize our wrapping skills,” Solas murmurs and Catheryn convulses beneath his hands, a hysterical giggle bubbling out of her throat. It grows as it spills until her entire body shakes with the force of her laughter and tears stream too quickly down her face to fall on the hands between them. “It is a hard thing you ask of us, _falon_ ,” he adds once she has quieted. “A terrible thing.”

“I know,” she replies, “but if I can’t trust my friends to keep me from becoming a monster… Well. Who else is left?”

“Who, indeed?” Solas stares at her, eyes gleaming silver in the shifting shadows of his room. “I have lived more years than I care to remember but you have grasped a wisdom that I have ever possessed,” he finally responds. “I am honored with your trust.”

It’s the touch of finality in his voice, the thread of steel in his acknowledgement that finally breaks her, the last of her hysterical smile falling from her lips. Her hands shake as she dashes the silent tears from her cheeks, relief washing over her. Maker, if nothing else, she’ll trust Solas to let her die as herself no matter what the Well or the goddess that it binds her too bids her do.

“You don’t have them,” she says suddenly. “The markings.” She motions at his face.

 “No. I do not," he retorts shortly. "Once I served Mythal but…” he presses his lips together and shakes his head.

“So the binding can be broken.” She’s too tired to feel hopeful, let alone sound it, but he knows anyway. He always knows. Slowly, Solas shakes his head.

“Not… easily. Or lightly. You must either be released or…”

“…Or?” she prods when he falls silent, staring down at the floor with a focus sharp enough to cut the thick wooden planks.

“…Or you must be broken free by another of the Evanuris.”

Catheryn feels herself deflate as she sighs, his words whispering coldly around the room. She’s not exactly drowning in ancient elven gods, today’s events notwithstanding.  “Ah, well, it was a good idea,” she murmurs, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “Probably won’t matter anyway,” she adds and summons a shadow of a smile.

Solas does not mirror her attempts. He stares at her, jaw clenched and eyes fixed upon her face like he’s weighing her, like he’s seeing some part of her that he’s never viewed before. Which is utterly ridiculous. He’s seen every inch of her, inside and out, literally and metaphorically.

“Yes,” he agrees finally, his voice unbearably careful. “It was a good idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translations**  
>  _fenor_ : precious; similar to the English endearment beloved  
>  _falon_ : friend, specifically a close, trusted friend who is a guiding influence on your life  
>  _ir abelas_ : I'm sorry
> 
>  **Long winded author's notes**  
>  Oh look! A chapter! I almost waited for Monday but I'm celebrating because baby decided to be good to me and flip to the "appropriate" position and my life is infinitely easier/less stressful now. So I decided posting a chapter and baking a cake was in order.  
> In a similar vein: I'm a week from my due date and while I typically go the full 40 weeks (or have in the past) we're definitely at that "Eh, it could be today or a week from today. Who the fuck knows?" stage of things. Posting might (will) get erratic. I'll finish out this slice - two chapters, after this, unless my tweaking adds significantly to the word count - and then...  
> * First up is Cullen's little companion (?) piece. A 5 and 1 sort of styling that lets us a bit more into his head covering events that take place between the end of _Not Broken, Just Bent_ and the Wicked Grace game in _Call it a Draw_. Current working title is _"A Man of Few Words"_. About 50% finished with the actual writing of this.  
>  * Next slice covers Catheryn's trip to the altar of Mythal and some stuff that happens at Skyhold while she's gone. About a third of the way through writing this. No solid title yet.  
> * I also have a (short) half finished AU where Catheryn ends up with Bull and Dorian instead of Cullen and Thom that will get posted at some point and a (also short) one shot that follows Samson's thoughts from the time he meets Maddox to the time he (Samson) is executed. 
> 
> As these pieces aren't finished (and for this fic, just because it's ultimate arch is so big, I have a strict "first draft must be completed before I start posting" rule) I'm not sure when I'll actually be posting them. Sometimes I have a huge flurry of creative energy postpartum and get a shit load of writing done while I'm being lazy and snuggling the new baby and sometimes I default to binges of book reading and watching too much tv. 
> 
> However, since it would probably be easier to give up breathing than writing, I've also been toying with starting a new, side project. Something that would be good for those "I can write for exactly 5 minutes and I don't want to think too hard about it" moments. It's an idea that's been lurking in my head for about a year. It's a "Modern Girl in Thedas" style fic featuring a protagonist that is _not _the Inquisitor and who knows absolutely _nothing_ about Thedas/Dragon Age. The short of it is it is/would be an absolutely ridiculous piece with some semblance of overarching plot. Oh, and for kicks and giggles, it would have a bit of a _Choose Your Own Adventure___ thing going on. Or reader directed choices - everything from plot dependent choices to the absolutely absurd.  
>  \-----------  
>  __  
> I always grew up with the vague notion in the back of my head that other worlds – other peoples, other species, other everything – existed. Part of that is a childhood spent watching too many science fiction flicks from behind the couch and part of is simply the idea that Earth – and all of us poor idiots on it – is it in the grand expanse of the universe is just utterly ridiculous. So I’ve always thought that other worlds were out there. Aliens. Horrors. Beauties. The whole fuckin’ shebang.  
>  I just never thought I’d end up smack dab in the middle of the whole fuckin’ shebang.  
> Much less with my mom.  
> No matter what you “knew” beforehand that is sure to fuck with your worldview ten ways to Sunday. Scouts Honor.  
> Still, there are a few things of which I’m reasonably sure:  
> 1) Magic is real. HOLY SHIT, MAGIC IS REAL. I didn’t get my letter to Hogwarts but this is just as good.  
> 2) There’s definitely something bigger out there. God? The Creator? The Maker? The Great Spirit? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? The Force? Who knows, who cares. But it’s definitely there.  
> 3) I can, in fact, live without an internet connection. But Jesus Christ on a Cracker I miss Netflix. And Pinterest. And Amazon. And Pandora. Oh god, Pandora…  
> 4) Brownies are just as addicting on other worlds. So are cookies. And cakes. And pizza. I miss gummy bears. And Doritos.  
> 5) Love is universal. It’s not something confined to our world, or even our species. And it’s still messy, painful, and beautiful.  
> 6) Hangovers are still a bitch.  
> 7) People are still stupid. But they still mean well.  
> 8) The Iron Bull is banging my mom.  
> ____________  
> This, obviously, would be a written-in-real-time piece so updates would be erratic but I can't get the concept out of my head. So... interest? Anyone?


	10. Hold On Tight and Don't Let Go

_Inquisitor and party returned to Skyhold via Eluvian. T. Rainier suffering from red lyrium injury. Rest of party unharmed. Corypheus thwarted, though remains at large. Samson eliminated. Ancient elven power acquired. Inform Commander._

* * *

_Cullen - We’re alive. Thom was injured as we fled Corypheus. Red lyrium. Solas has done all that he can. There’s more. So much more but… It’s too much for a letter. Be safe. I love you._

* * *

 

 

He kills two horses getting back to Skyhold.

Four, technically, if you count the mounts that Dorian rides into the ground to keep up with him. 

Every time one of them goes down, sides heaving and heart hammering to the bursting point behind the cage of their ribs, he feels a pang of guilt in his own chest. Every time he is forced to watch them bleed out from his mercy stroke he wants to grit his teeth and look away from what he has done, too many memories of his father patiently leading his hands through the motions of caring for the family’s pair of farm horses pounding in his head. The guilt sits on his heart, another weight that pulls at him. It should be a small thing but it’s not. The soldiers that he’s left behind, done little more than abandon to Rylen’s care – both the living and the dead – at least they _chose._ The beasts that carry him across eastern Orlais have not. They have no idea that the very act of him picking up their tack is a death sentence.

It’s not enough to stop him though.

None of it matters. Not right now. He’ll deal with it later. Later, when he knows that they are well and safe.

They ride, day and night, pressing as hard and fast as they can. They stop rarely – when they run low on water, when they’re so tired that dozing in the saddle is no longer safe. He loathes having to stop, cursing the weakness that trembles through his hands as he folds and unfolds the missives brought to him by a nervous looking scout. Leliana’s had been opened, Catheryn’s had not. Not that it matters, he supposes. Leliana’s people are all good at keeping secrets.

“You need to sleep,” Dorian’s voice, slurred with sleep, mumbles from the other side of the fire.

 “Can’t,” Cullen whispers hoarsely as he turns the small tube of paper over and over between his fingers. He needs to, he knows, knows it without the gentle prodding from his friend but he can’t. There’s nothing but nightmares – memories and truths and an endless, horrifying parade of what-might-be waiting for him on the other side of consciousness. And that’s even without the demons that are no doubt waiting to make him their plaything.

Maker’s breath.

“You’ll be no use to her if you can’t even stand up,” Dorian retorts, not unkindly.

Cullen lets out a shaky breath. He knows that, Maker, _he knows that_. Repeating it with as much devotion as the chant doesn’t change the fact that he can’t bring himself to do much more than flirt with unconsciousness. It doesn’t change the fact that he needs to be strong, needs to hold it together because that’s how they work. He is strong for her, she is strong for him – they’re strong for each other so the other can have the grace to be weak when the world isn’t watching.

It’s his turn to be strong and, Maker help him, he’s not sure he’ll be able to.

He just wants home – their room, their bed, with the walls of Skyhold standing sentry around them. He wants to lay down in the extravagant mess of down pillows and bedding that smell like herbs, armor polish, and fresh cut wood. He wants to burrow into the tangle of fabric and skin, to smell the sweet scent of her beneath his lips and rest easy knowing that she is there. That _he_ is there, a steady warm presence on her other side.

“You’ll be no use to Thom, either,” Dorian continues as he flings his forearm over his eyes and Cullen’s stomach clenches so hard that it heaves. If he’d eaten much of anything in the past day it would have come back up but he hasn’t, so it doesn’t, and he just grinds his teeth against the pain.

“It won’t matter if he’s dead,” he whispers.

 Dorian snorts. “If you think Lovely’s going to let him die than you’re not half as smart behind that pretty face as I thought you were.” He sighs. “Get some sleep,” he urges again. “Or at least try. It will take longer to get there if you keep falling off your horse.”

Cullen never does manage to fall asleep but he tries. Paper clutched between his fingers like some sort of talisman, he tries, and manages to at least doze in the flickering firelight while his brain plays the song of red lyrium inside his head.

 

* * *

 

The third pair of horses are wheezing and soaked but not beyond saving, not yet, when Cullen and Dorian clatter into Skyhold’s stable yard just after moonrise. Any other time the look that Master Dennett gives him as he rushes from the stable would have withered Cullen on the spot but not tonight. Tonight he barely spares the horsemaster a glance, sliding out of the saddle before the animal even stops moving.

 “Dorian…”

 “Go, you blonde buffoon!” the mage orders, waving a hand as he dismounts. “Go!”

  Cullen goes.

He bypasses the main entrance and slips in through the door to the kitchens, moving amongst the long wooden prep tables and low hanging cookware like a man possessed. The kitchen staff takes one look at his face and scatters, bolting out of his way, and a serving girl near the door is smart enough to shove it open before he simply barrels through it. Up another short flight of stairs and through another bloody door and the noise of the Great Hall hits him like a slap in the face. The unexpectedness of it, after days spent in a saddle with nothing but the sounds of nature and the occasional comment from Dorian, makes him waver on his feet. He blinks for a moment, lost in the chaotic swirl of clinking silverware and silky, boisterous voices.

The sliver of gray and blue that he spots out of the corner of his eye is a lifeline and his hand darts out before he has time to even think, snagging the poor scout by the front of his uniform and hauling him out of the dinner crowd.

“Commander!” Jim’s eyes widen comically in his face, his skin paling as Cullen’s fingers tighten around the softened leather.

“Where?” he growls and the scout pales further.

“The W-w-war R-room…”

Cullen lets him drop to the floor. In another time he would have been impressed that the other man landed on his feet as nimbly as a cat. Not today. Today he doesn’t even see it, not really. He’s already moving, pushing his way through the Great Hall and fighting the urge to draw his sword and simply carve his way through the simpering peacocks standing in his way.

 He doesn’t though. Josephine would kill him.

The ambassador’s office isn’t empty but it takes him longer than it should to realize that the woman sitting behind the massive desk in the corner isn’t Josephine. Josephine certainly wouldn’t look so terrified at the sight of a tired, angry, frightened ex Templar storming across the expensive wool rugs. Clearly her assistant, while no doubt capable, isn’t cut from quite the same cloth as the fiery little Antivan. “War Room?” he verifies as he passes and the woman nods.

“Yes, ser!”

The door slams shut behind him, his feet moving swiftly and automatically over and around the neat piles of rubble that – two and a half years later – still litter the corridor.

  “Maker.”

  The sound of her voice, faint and muffled, through the thick wood of the massive doors is enough to make his knees give out beneath him. _Alive_. Maker, she’s _alive_. He hadn’t been aware of how much he had doubted the little missives rolled in his pocket, how much he had believed them to be taunts spun in a demon fueled dream made waking, until now. Gripping the wood so tightly that he could feel it start to crack and splinter beneath his fingers he ripped the doors open and staggered into the War Room.

 Vaguely he notes that the room is in a bit of a disarray – a small desk set up in the far corner beneath the solitary high window and surrounded by empty bird cages. The spymaster herself is directly opposite the door, delicate eyebrow rising and lips quirking in a smile of welcome as he steadies himself against the doorframe so that he doesn’t go down in a crash of chain mail and relief.

Andraste be praised, _she_ is in her usual spot, her back half turned to the doorway as she stands alongside the War Table with her hands braced on the edge of the table as she stares down at the marker dotted mapped surface. She’s pale and tired looking, the shadows under her eyes darker than they’ve been in months, if not years, and her hair is pulled back in a careful braid that hangs halfway down her back. The edge of the hair, fiercely auburn in the lamplight, curls rebelliously against the backdrop of the faded blue tunic. His fingers itch to reach out and touch it, to hold it in his hands and feel it catch at the calluses that litter his skin.

“Catheryn…” the words stick in his throat, choking him as he stands in the doorway staring.

 Her shoulders stiffen in surprise and she turns the rest of the way, dark brown eyes blown wide with surprise. “Cullen…?”

Her voice, more than anything else, sells him on the fact that this is real. The he’s here. That she’s here. Maker’s breath, that she’s _alive_.

“You’re alive,” he whispers and takes a step forward. “You’re alive,” he repeats thickly, tears burning at the corners of his eyes. “You’re _alive_.” Another step. And another. And then, _Maker,_ then his arms are around her and he can feel her, living and breathing beneath his touch as he crushes her to his chest and buries his face in her hair. It’s soft against his face, soaking up the tears that stream down his cheeks as he inhales roughly, filling his lungs with the scents of elfroot and lavender and _her_. He presses his lips to the top of her head and quietly shakes. Lyrium withdrawals have nothing on sheer relief.

Inside the shelter of his arms Catheryn isn’t doing much better. Her entire body trembles with fine, intermittent shivers as she clings to him, her fingers scrambling across the rough links of his chainmail until they find cloth and skin to grip so tightly he can hear the fibers tear and feel the bite of her nails digging into his skin. The small pricks of pain, barely noticeable, are welcomed as they wash through him. Demons and the Fade can do many things – _be_ many things – but sensations are never quite right there. Pain and pleasure reduced to nothing but distorted shadows, a mockery of the real thing.

Present him wonders how much pain might have been avoided if past him had known this. How his life, how so many other lives, would have been different if he had been able to differentiate between the waking world and the sleeping. Of course, that would have required treating mages like they were people – learning from them, trusting them.

Even before the disaster of Kinloch he hadn’t trusted mages. Not even Neria, Maker help him.

Not until he’d met the woman in his arms.

“After the battle we searched the temple and…” he shakes his head almost frantically, desperate to dislodge the memories, the absolute horror that had filled him as he and a company of soldiers had searched the ruins. “… and… we found Samson but… we thought. _I_ thought…” he swallows, the words sticking sharp in his throat. He can’t get them out. Not even if his life depended on it.

He’d thought her dead or captured by Corypheus. Room after room, courtyard after courtyard filled with corpses, with blood and fire and ruin. Not even the sight of Samson lying lifeless on his back with his life spread in a crimson pool around him had been enough to stem the mind numbing despair that had been slowly consuming him since he’d watched Catheryn follow Corypheus into the temple. He’d never thought that there could be anything worse than being trapped and tortured in Kinloch. The day that had passed between the search of the temple and the arrival of Leliana’s first raven had proved him wrong.

“I’m right here,” she whispers, tightening her grip as if to remind herself of that fact. “I’m alive. I’m right here.”

Cullen nods, still unable to speak and presses a hard kiss to her lips as added reassurance that he is right here too.

He’s not sure how long it takes them both to stop shaking. Long enough that Leliana gathers up her stack of reports and leaves the War Room, pressing a comforting hand to his shoulder as she passes them, the door shutting quietly behind her. Long enough for the candles to burn down into pools of melted wax. Long enough for the flames to flicker, threatening their immediate death as they approach the end of their wicks. Long enough for his legs to grow numb from standing in one position for so long.

They stand long enough for him to mentally recite a fair bit of the chant. The familiar words are welcome, each one a lodestone that eases some of the tightness in his chest. It’s only when the War Room has plunged into darkness, one lowly candle guttering wildly at the far end of the room, that Cullen is able to let out a deep, shuddering sigh and pull back enough to look at Catheryn’s face. She looks back calmly, her dark eyes gleaming in the fain light as he inhales sharply, squares his shoulder, and asks the question that’s been burning in his throat since he’d gathered Catheryn in his arms.

“Where’s Thom?”

 

* * *

 

Cullen stares down at the shape of Thom lying in their bed and grips the poster of the headboard until he can hear the wood creak beneath his grip. The older warrior is a great, barreling, bear of a man – in and out of his armor – but he seems diminished somehow. Smaller and weaker as he lies beneath the stretch of a frightfully expensive silk embroidered coverlet and the weight of a finely knit wool throw, his normally weathered complexion frightfully pale against the bright splashes of color.  The only thing that stops his heart from pounding out of his ribs in panic is the slow but steady rise and fall of the other man’s chest.

“Maker’s breath,” he finally whispers.

“It’s better than it used to be,” Catheryn murmurs quietly as she reaches out to gently brush at the dark strands of Thom’s hair. “The first day… I’ve seen corpses that looked more alive. Even without being possessed and reanimated,” she adds darkly. “It’s been two days since Solas and Dagna had to cut lyrium crystals out of his leg – we’re hoping that was the last of it.”

“Maker…” he can’t think of any words. Of all the possible deaths waiting for them he has never thought to worry that the lyrium attacking the world would take anyone but him. It was his demon, the monster that haunted his every waking hour and would until he died – and in truth would probably kill him. That it had all but killed this man who, for all his faults, had never had a single drop of the singing blue mineral pass his lips, shook him more than he could admit.

“He even regained consciousness for a few minutes this morning,” Catheryn continues. “Honestly, that’s more than I thought to even hope for. When we came through the Eluvian…when I _saw_ …” she shakes her head. “I was sure he was dead. That he would bleed to death there in my arms or that I’d have to put a sword in his heart just like I did with Samson. I never thought he’d live, much less wake up again.” She lets out a huff, a watery little laugh, and presses her face to his arm. “I’m so tired,” she admits quietly. “I’m just… _tired_.”

“I know,” Cullen agrees as he forces himself to unwrap his fingers from the polished wood before he breaks it. Because he does. It’s been three and a half years since Conclave exploded and Catheryn fell out of the Fade and into a living nightmare. And before that it had a year of chaos following the explosion of Kirkwall’s chantry, not to mention all of the misery that had preceded it. He’s tired. Not just from the days of hard riding and no sleep but from everything, and in every which way.  “I know,” he repeats as he wraps his fingers around Thom’s hand and squeezes it gently.

He’s tired of watching those he cares for, those he loves, die. Or almost die.

  He’s tired of the daily reports, of seeing the names of those who have died in carrying out their duties – orders that he has issued – written in the impossibly neat handwriting that Leliana cultivates amongst her scouts. He’s tired of life and death being rendered down into something as simple as letters bunched together on a page. Another list, another report that he has to wade through. He’s tired of having to notify families. He’s even more tired of realizing that for many of those lost there is no family to notify.

He’s tired of sitting behind his desk and doing nothing. He’s tired of leading men into battle, tired of fighting, tired of killing.

 Maker’s breath, his twelve year old self would have fallen over in a dead faint to hear such things.

Of course his twelve year old self hadn’t killed a man yet, nor watched his friends be tortured and murdered. He hadn’t let his nightmares and fears turn him into a monster. His twelve year old self hadn’t held the love of his life in his arms as she fell apart – hadn’t even done more than blush when a pretty girl had smiled at him. He hadn’t had to betray his commanding officer, leave the institution that was the entirety of his life, lead the largest army in Thedas, or mourn his child and give her ashes to the care of the earth.

Twelve year old him had been full of naïve hope and innocent dreams of grandeur.

Thirty-three year old him is worn out and world weary.

Cullen curls his arm around Catheryn’s shoulders, pulling her in until she’s close enough for his lips to ghost a handful of kisses across the top of her head. “He’ll be alright,” he finally murmurs as he stares down at the man at the end of his hand.

Catheryn’s words, quiet to begin with, are muffled against his chest. “You don’t know that.”

Cullen kisses her head again. “Yes, I do.” And he does.

 He knows because can hear the song of lyrium from miles away, can track even a single drop of it as it swims through the veins of the mage standing watch on the other side of the keep. He knows, down to bottle, exactly how much lyrium the Inquisition stocks at any given time. It sings to him relentlessly, crooning like a lover -  or perhaps a mother to a fussy child. He hears it and even though his stomach turns at the mere thought of ever letting it pass his lips again he imagines that he’ll hear it until the day he dies.  And there is no melody singing at him from inside the other warrior’s flesh and bone.

 No sweet seduction. No jarring discordance. Nothing but silence.

They’re alive. They’re _both_ alive.

And that’s enough.

Maker help him, that’s enough.               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good gods, I had forgotten how difficult it is to type/format/navigate/blah-blah-blah with one hand. Part of me wants to complain because my Muse is screaming "WRITE ALL THE THINGS!!!" and dancing about like a crazy person but really, I can't, because the other hand is busy cuddling new baby deliciousness. Swoon. 
> 
> Anyway... one more chapter after this. It'll probably be about 2 weeks...? I made the ...ahem... mistake of deciding to overhaul the final few chapters approximately 5 days before I had a baby. Probably not one of my wisest decisions but here we are...


	11. Another Game to Play

Maker’s fucking balls, his leg is killing him.

It doesn’t matter that he’s already tossed back half a dozen healing potions today already. Nor, apparently, does it matter that Solas spent nearly an hour this morning poking and prodding at his leg like a blighted vulture and muttering under his breath in Elven. Instead, there’s still a massive fucking hole in his leg that burns like a rage demon has set up camp in his thigh.

Thom insists on attending the meeting in the War Room anyway.

Everyone is there, all of the Inner Circle currently in residence at Skyhold, and it is the fullest Thom has ever seen the War Room. The room itself is some sort of inner sanctum, sacred and secret in a way that not even Catheryn’s quarters or Leliana’s rookery are. It’s the hub of the entire Inquisiton, the place where the minds and wills of Catheryn and her advisors – with occasional input from other members of the Inner Circle, usually the Iron Bull – play out beneath their hands and are then unleashed upon Thedas. Truthfully, in the years since they came to Skyhold Thom himself has only been in here a dozen times. It’s surprisingly simple for the place in which the fate of much of the world is decided.

“Alright?” Catheryn asks him tightly as she straightens from tucking a light blanket over his legs, her lips pressed in a thin line.

“Perfect,” he snaps before he can stop himself. He exhales harshly and shuts his eyes. Maker, he’s a miserable bastard. It’s not her fault that he’s utterly useless, that he can’t even sit in a proper chair. That he can’t do anything but sit and watch while they decide the fate of the world. This isn’t a battlefield. This isn’t even a meeting in which his military knowledge can be put to practical use. _Useless_ , he echoes to himself. “I’m sorry,” he mutters after taking a deep breath. “I didn’t…” The soft touch of her fingers against his hand stops the words in his mouth.

“I know.”

He should be relieved that he’s not going to morph into some sort of lyrium studded monster and rampage through the fortress in the near future – and he is, Maker, he’s so relieved that even thinking of it punches all the air out of his lungs – but at the moment the relief is thoroughly squashed by the anger and the worry drumming through his veins. He’s her shield, her protection, her front line man and he’s broken. Not beyond repair, thank the Maker, but broken all the same.

It’s not a good place to be in when the world is trying to fall down around their ears.

Thom takes a deep breath and curls his fingers around hers. “I’m fine,” he whispers. “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” he amends at her soft snort of disbelief.  “They’re waiting.” He tips his head at the massive table and the people standing around it.

“I know. I just…” she shakes her head. He squeezes her hand gently. He knows. Maker, he knows.

“I trust we can get on with business now?” Morrigan drawls as Catheryn returns to her place at the table. Catheryn doesn’t even bother to glance at the witch, instead bracing her hands at the edge of the table and leaning over to stare intently at the map.

“Commander?”

“Uh…” Cullen runs a hand through his hair. “We won the battle. When you went through that mirror Corypheus and his archdemon fled the field. I’m not sure why.”

Morrigan shrugs, “Tis simple – what he wanted was no longer within the temple.”  

“Perhaps. He spent so long trying to get into the temple – he might not have been able to help his forces by that point and without their master the Templar forces folded. Our casualties were about what we expected them to be,” he adds more quietly and Thom feels the familiar catch in his chest. He doesn’t know the soldiers like Cullen does – he doesn’t know their names or their favorite drinks. He doesn’t train with them – at least not on a regular basis – and he rarely goes into battle with him but in a way they’re still his men. They’re his because they’re Catheryn’s and because they’re Cullen’s.

“I have my scouts looking for him but so far there have been no sightings,” Leliana breaks in. “Perhaps he is hiding. If he is wise he will rebuild his strength before he attacks again.”

Catheryn shakes her head. “He won’t hide,” she says fiercely. She’s still staring at the map like it’s the only thing in the room, her fingertips tapping softly against the vellum.

“You hear it.” Morrigan’s words are barely more than a whisper of air and if anyone else had been talking he wouldn’t have caught it, not even sitting as close to her as he is. “The Well,” the witch clarifies. “It speaks to you.”

Catheryn looks up from the map. “Yes,” she agrees simply. “Or at least it tries. It’s more feelings than anything,” she cocks her head, tucking her head into her shoulder and falling silent as if… _as if she is listening, straining to hear a distant sound,_ he realizes after a moment.

Maker, what has she _done_?

What she must, he supposes, but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

“Trying to hear it is like trying to understand whispers from a great distance,” Catheryn continues with a shake of her head. “You know someone is speaking but it is difficult to make out the words.”

“Fascinating,” Dorian’s drawl breaks the awkward silence. “From the reports I was under the assumption that the Well was closer to some sort of potion but this… It is almost like it is some form of spirit possession.”

“That is an apt, if clumsy, simile,” Solas agrees.

 At the far end of the table the Iron Bull goes a little green beneath the silver-gray expanse of his skin. “… Possessed?” he repeats shrilly.

Solas slashes the air angrily. “She is not an _abomination_.” He glares at Dorian. “She is... embodying the sum of millennia of devotion and knowledge...”

“Yes and if only _one who understood such voices_ had used the Well’s power instead,” Morrigan snaps icily, “we might already be formulating a course of action instead of standing around arguing about possession and letting such knowledge go to waste.”

Thom’s not sure whether he wants to hug the witch or punch her.

Catheryn, it appears, is struggling with the same conundrum.

Leliana, however, is not. “Then we’d have to rely on _her_ interpretation of them and whatever she chose to tell us.” He can’t see the spymaster’s face, not from the angle he’s sitting at, but he’d be willing to bet Varric a hundred sovereigns that she’s staring at the witch with a pretty, biting smile and an arched eyebrow – a look that is quite capable of sending most of the known world running in terror.

“I’m sorry, have I not been forthcoming enough for you _spymaster_?” Morrigan sneers. “I told you what the Well _could_ have done, Inquisitor,” she spits at Catheryn. “You should be hearing shouts from the heavens, not whispers!”

“Enough!” Cullen’s voice cuts through the raised voices, the growl of it snapping through the ringing echo of Morrigan’s assault with a finality that makes the witch take an unconscious step away from the table. “ _Enough_ ,” he repeats roughly.

After a moment of silence Solas returns them to the matter at hand. “You say that it speaks to you, _falon_. What is it saying?”

Catheryn shakes her head at the elf’s gentle prodding. “It… the archdemon. It’s not an archdemon,” she murmurs with a glance around the room. Her words are hesitant but her gaze is not and some of the pent up tension drains out beneath it.

“Thank the Maker,” Leliana whispers.

 “It’s just a dragon that Corypheus has invested part of his power in. It’s still terrifying but…”

Bull snorts. “… a dragon? We can kill a dragon, Boss." The Qunari looks absolutely feral as he smirks across the table.

The answering smile that tugs at Catheryn’s lips isn’t particularly pleasant. “It gets better. Kill the dragon and we disrupt Corypheus’ ability to jump bodies. Kill the dragon and I get a chance to kill the magister.”

“ _We_ , Lovely. _We_ kill then dragon and then _we_ get the chance to kill him," corrects Dorian. "I didn't come all this way and spend months trudging through muck to not help you take out the trash."

“That’s still no simple task,” Leliana murmurs. “Corypheus alone is powerful, but with his dragon…” she shakes her head. “It might not be an archdemon but I’m not sure that it makes much difference in the end.”

He doesn’t like the looks the two women exchange, doesn’t like it a single fucking bit.

“I know,” Catheryn agrees quietly. “I know.” She sighs and tugs at the end of her braid. “I need to summon Mythal.”

Bull grunts. “I thought she was dead.”

“She is.”

“There,” Catheryn ignores them both and taps the map firmly, and even from his seat Thom can see the spot that her finger touches – a spot in the Arbor Wilds just to the west of where they had just fought and – at least in his case – nearly died. “There’s an… altar in the wilderness.” She nods as if confirming something to herself, a conversation with an entity that none of them can hear or see or even begin to comprehend. Something cold twists in his heart as he watches her, watches her face as she stares down at the map, her eyes distant.

She’s alone again. She’s gone somewhere that he can’t follow.

Fuck.

“That’s where I need to go.”

Thom sighs and grips at his leg, stomach heaving as he accidently grabs a fraction of an inch too high. Fuck, but he’s got to stop doing that. He grinds his teeth and wills the health potions and the half cup of soup he’d drunk this morning to stay in his stomach. “Are you certain?” he asks quietly, undercutting the buzz of opinions swarming the room.

Catheryn blinks and stares at him over the expanse of the map, the whole of the world stretched out between them. “I have no choice. Corypheus is desperate and angry. If he strikes now…” She doesn’t need to finish that sentence. He had been there with her, once the others had left through the mirror, facing down the magister’s fury.

 She has beaten him, broken his schemes, and righted his chaos at every corner. Fighting and snarling and not giving the blighted bastard a single fucking inch. The anger and the frustration has been mounting, for years, exploding out from the moment of Conclave and simmering at a constant boil. His loss at the Temple of Mythal, both of the battle and of the Well… Thom shudders, his fingers clenching so tight that his vision goes blurry and his stomach heaves.

That level of desperation would make a man unpredictably dangerous – and it has been ages beyond count since Corypheus has been a mere man.

Maker, this is the end isn’t it?

 Oh, the confrontation between Catheryn and Corypheus might not be happening right this moment but this is the beginning of the end. No, that’s not _quite_ right. The end began the moment Catheryn stepped into the Well. For three and half years they’ve been running around like chickens with their heads cut off, thrashing at seemingly inevitable death. It’s been wild and crazy and he’s almost fucking died at least  dozen times but all the same it’s been… it’s been like watching a game of chess. And not just any game of chess but one of the dizzying ones that Solas and Bull manage to play out without a board.

With nothing but words.

Usually shouted.

In the middle of battle.

Now though, now they’ve thrown the fucking board on the ground and Catheryn’s hit the bastard in the face with a mean right hook.

If he wasn’t so terrified of the situation he’d laugh, because he wouldn’t put it past her to actually punch Corypheus in the face.

Thom inhales slowly and around the table. Leliana is glaring at the map as if she means to wring all of the worlds secrets from its parchment and aged ink. Solas is watching Catheryn with a tight jaw and a pale face, his eyes remarkably silver in the sunlight. Dorian and Bull are standing so close together that they might as well be one person. Morrigan is tapping at her arm as she glares at Catheryn. Clearly, the witch has absolutely not forgiven the other woman for her use of the Well. Not that _that_ is a surprise. Catheryn herself is quite and still, an eye in the storm of emotions swirling around the room. She looks about as tired as he feels, looking both ancient and vulnerably young in a single swoop. Beside her, with one hand curled so tightly around the pommel of his sword that it’s a blighted miracle that the thing doesn’t shatter beneath the pressure, Cullen is the storm itself.

“I will not let Skyhold become another Haven,” he promises and Thom does not doubt him. Cullen is not a man that repeats his mistakes and if nothing else, he’ll protect Skyhold because he can’t protect Catheryn herself. He doesn’t like it, doesn’t like the idea of her waltzing back into the mystic dangers hidden in tangled jungles and tumbled ruins. Cullen doesn’t like it either. It’s there for anyone to see in the small grimace that pulls at the scarred corner of his mouth, in the stern set of his jaw, and the way his eyes gleam like someone has managed to light a gold foundry on fire. “I’ll see to the defenses while you are gone,” the Commander adds more evenly. “Whatever Corypheus does next, we’ll be ready for him.”

At that Catheryn bares her teeth in a wolfish grin and Thom inhales sharply at the almost grotesque twisting of her face as it is torn between determination and despair.

They’ve spent almost four years getting to this point and now… now it’s about to end so fast that he might miss it if he takes the time to blink.

Maker preserve them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... that's it for _Bound_. Thank you so, so, **so** much to everyone who has kudo'd, commented, or even just followed along. It still never fails to delight me in a rather ridiculous fashion that there are people out there who actually want to read the stuff that comes tumbling out of my head. I'm shit at reply to comments but I treasure each and every one of them!
> 
> No definite start date for the next installment but rest assured I'm writing away on it - okay... _them_ because damned if I ever only write one thing at a time. My muse is very "wibbly-wobbley, timey-wimey" about these sorts of things - as fast as I can.


End file.
